


If I Could Start Again

by Taaroko



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Brodinsons, Canon Divergence - Thor (2011), Gen, Snowball effect, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Time Travel, brand new timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-19 11:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 66,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14873238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taaroko/pseuds/Taaroko
Summary: Stormbreaker strikes Thanos a couple inches to the left of where it does in canon, with much more satisfying results. However, revenge alone won't fill the voids left behind by all that Thor has lost.(This started as a one-shot, but I'll keep going as long as I keep thinking of interesting places to go with it.)





	1. Mulligan

Thor hurled Stormbreaker towards Thanos. It cut through the power of all the stones and struck just where Thor had intended: right at the left shoulder. He landed behind it and bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. This was not a joyous victory, but damn if it was not a _satisfying_ one. The arm hung useless and Thanos’s eyes were wide with pain and disbelief. “I told you you would die for that,” said Thor. He pushed the axe even deeper until it severed the arm completely.

“You’ve doomed us all,” Thanos gasped. “I would have saved the universe.”

“You call it salvation, slaughtering half of my people when they were already but a fraction of Asgard’s numbers from mere weeks ago? Wiping out the dwarves and leaving only their king behind to suffer?” said Thor. “You think yourself a just god, capable of making the hard choices, but there is nothing in you but cruelty. My brother was right. You will never be a god.”

Thanos tried to attack with his remaining hand, but with a mighty roar, Thor swung Stormbreaker again, this time for the neck. There was another spray of violet blood, followed by two more thumps. The Titan had fallen.

All around Thor, the battle was coming to an end. The gauntlet lay on the grass at his feet, still on Thanos’s severed arm. The green gem in the thumb setting faced upward. _Time_.

How little time it had taken for Thor to lose everything. His world. His friends. All but a pitiful remnant of his people. His entire family. It seemed incredible that he had cared so much about losing his hair and his hammer so recently. Neither mattered to him at all now, and what was losing an eye compared to nearly everyone he had ever loved?

He had stopped Thanos. He had gotten his revenge. What was left for him now but to go back to the refugees who’d fled with the Valkyrie? Surely there was nothing else he could do. And yet...

Thor wasn’t really thinking. Someone was calling his name—Rogers, perhaps. People were realizing Thanos had fallen. Thor barely heard them. He used the point of Stormbreaker’s purple-stained blade to pry the Time Stone free of the gauntlet, then bent down and picked it up.

“Thor, what are you doing?” It was the rabbit. “You shouldn’t be holding one of those things in your bare hand.”

Thor ignored him. He clenched his fist around Time hard enough to drive it into his flesh. Burning green light erupted from between his fingers, growing steadily brighter. He could suddenly see his entire life stretching out behind him. All those centuries of taking everything he had for granted. He saw the future stretching out ahead of him too, in all its possibilities. Many of them showed cause for hope, but none showed the faces he longed to see again.

Dimly, he could hear voices shouting at him to let the Stone go, but he would not. He clung to it even tighter, though the pain was building. He turned his gaze to the past and yelled as he felt himself unraveling.

X

Thor felt a sensation not unlike missing a step when going down stairs. He was no longer on the battlefield on Earth, being consumed by green fire; instead, he found he was sitting on the steps in one of the feast halls in the palace. There was an overturned table, with food, plates, and cutlery strewn all across the floor. “What?” he breathed.

Soft footsteps came from behind, and when he turned and saw whose they were, he felt like he’d been struck in the chest. Loki. Very much alive, though his hair was rather shorter than he was accustomed to of late. “Brother?” he said, getting to his feet. “Is this Valhalla?”

Loki stared at him in confusion. “Valhalla? We are in Asgard. Why would you—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish his question, because Thor had lifted him off his feet in a crushing hug. “Thor! What are you doing?” Thor only hugged him tighter. His little brother was really here, solid and warm and breathing—well, perhaps he was holding on too tight for that last one, but he was _alive_.

And that wasn’t all. “What’s this?!” Four people walked into the room, three of whom Thor had thought he would never see again. The tears that had begun building up the moment he saw Loki now flowed freely from his eyes—both of which he now realized felt like his own.

He was dimly aware of Loki managing to push him off. “If not Valhalla, then surely this is a dream,” he said.

“Brother, what is wrong with you? I thought you would be cross about your coronation, not—”

“My coronation?” Thor repeated, and then he realized. He remembered flipping that table in his wrath. He remembered Loki coming around the pillar to sit with him, and then Sif and the Warriors Three entering. Right before they went to Jotunheim.

Right before it all went wrong.

 _Time_. The Time Stone had sent him back. None of it had happened yet. And now, none of it had to.

An incredulous laugh burst its way out of him, and he dashed over to his friends, unable to contain his happiness at seeing them again. He hugged Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg (causing the latter to drop his plate), and even Sif, for though she was not dead in his time, it had been years since he’d last seen her. She was the only one whose startlement didn’t prevent her from hugging him back.

“Well,” said Fandral. “You’re certainly taking this setback better than we anticipated.”

“Yes,” said Volstagg, determinedly putting together another platter of food. “It hardly seems the moment for such an outpouring of affection, not that I’m complaining.”

Thor paid no attention. He rounded on Loki. “Where are Mother and Father? I must see them.” He ran a hand through his hair—which was no longer short. “And Heimdall will be in the Observatory.” On impulse, he stuck out his right hand. He could already feel the familiar response. “It’s all still here.” Mjolnir flew into his hand, and he laughed again through his tears, tossing it up and catching it. It felt oddly small now, but so wonderfully familiar.

“Thor,” said Sif, touching his arm. “Why do you speak as though...I don’t know...as though you’ve been gone for years?”

“Because I have,” said Thor. “The Norns have given me a second chance, and I intend to make the most of it.”

“What are you talking about?” said Loki. He had come around to stand beside the others. All five of them stood before him, exchanging bewildered and concerned looks.

“I don’t know that you’d believe me if I told you. I’m still not sure I believe it myself.” He couldn’t help staring around at absolutely everything. How had he never noticed how _beautiful_ it all was? _Home_.

“You must let us decide that for ourselves,” said Hogun.

The smile slid from his face as the weight of everything he’d lived through returned to the forefront of his mind. “My friends,” he said, voice full of emotion, one hand on Loki’s neck, the other on Fandral’s shoulder. “I am not the callow fool who thought to sit upon Hlidskjalf today. I am the Thor of a most terrible future. In a mere handful of years since I first lived through this day, I have watched nearly all that I hold dear taken from me while I was unable to stop it.” His grips on them tightened. “I have seen Ragnarok, and worse.” Their alarm greatly increased at this. Ragnarok was the worst fear of every Asgardian. “But on my life, I will not let it happen this time.”

X

After that extraordinary pronouncement, Thor strode from the hall, leaving all of them dumbstruck in his wake.

“Can it be true?” said Sif faintly.

“You think he was lying?” said Fandral.

“Thor hasn’t a single dishonest bone in his body,” said Volstagg thickly around a bite of cheese. “As incredible as his claims were, he sounded perfectly sincere. I shudder to think what he has experienced. _Worse_ than Ragnarok?”

“I don’t think he was lying,” said Sif. “But how can such a thing be possible?”

“You know more of magic than any other in Asgard, Loki,” said Hogun. “What say you?”

“I have never heard of magic that can alter time,” said Loki. “But that does not mean it’s impossible. However, it is far more likely this is simply an imposter. What better way to engineer Ragnarok than by replacing or taking control of the Crown Prince?”

That possibility had plainly occurred to none of them, and they all looked horrified. “Then how can we be certain he is truly Thor and under no fell influence?” said Sif.

“Leave that to me,” said Loki, and he left to follow Thor—or whoever he was. This evening was not going at all how he had thought it would. His little scheme with the Frost Giants had successfully delayed the coronation, and right now, he should have been guiding Thor towards something incredibly reckless that would _finally_ prove to Father how foolish it would be to give him a throne. After Thor flipped the table over in his rage, it should have been but the work of a moment to do just that. Instead, in the blink of an eye, Thor had become a completely different man, one who described the Thor Loki knew as a callow fool and acted as though everything around him was wondrous, no longer remotely bothered by the botched coronation.

He caught up to Thor two corridors later, halfway to the throne room. Thor spotted him. “Good,” he said, and he slowed his pace until Loki was at his side. “There is much for both of us to discuss with Father.”

Loki stared at Thor intently. He probed with his seidr for any signs of foreign magics about him. There was nothing but the familiar crackling elemental energy that always resided beneath Thor’s skin. And yet he was still acting nothing like Thor, even in the simple movements of walking. His stride wasn’t a cocky strut; rather, there was a quiet self-assurance to his step, and he carried himself with genuine regality, despite the way he kept looking at everything around them like he found it both painful and beautiful. Loki had planned to test the waters carefully, but instead he opted for a more direct approach. “How can I be certain you are not some imposter in my brother’s form?” he asked.

Thor smiled, but it looked pained. “How would you have me convince you? Shall I recount stories of our childhood or our adventures together?” He asked it without a trace of uneasiness.

“That would be a start,” said Loki.

“Well, there was the time when we were children when I thought I had found the most magnificent snake, but then it turned into you, and you stabbed me.”

Loki had to bite back a laugh. Thor saw his reaction and chuckled. “I told that story recently, and you had the same response to it then. Why did you do that? I know it was only the first of many oh-so-humorous stabbings, but I never knew what prompted it.”

“I hardly remember,” said Loki. “I think we had been learning about some war where the victors won through subterfuge, and you declared that you would never fall for such tactics.”

“Ah, so you felt the need to prove me wrong,” said Thor.

“Naturally.”

“Was that satisfactory, then? Do you believe I am who I say?”

“It seems increasingly likely,” Loki admitted.

“Well, then there is something we must discuss before we see Father.” His tone had become rather stern all of a sudden, and he had stopped walking. The Thor Loki was used to never had the patience for something like sternness; when he disapproved of anything, he would either toss out an insult and then forget about it or else flash straight to anger. Even if this truly was Thor, merely older and wiser, Loki did not like being unable to predict his moods and actions.

“What would that be?”

Thor glanced around before saying in a low voice, “I know it was you who let the Frost Giants into the vault.”

Loki only barely succeeded in not reacting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Thor laughed. “If you’re going to lie, at least put your usual skill into it.” Loki glared at him, now seriously weighing the merits of stabbing him. If he was really Thor, it would be excellent revenge for that remark. If not, he would have stabbed an enemy of Asgard. “Don’t worry,” Thor went on. “I won’t tell Father. I know your intentions weren’t treasonous; you only wanted to delay my becoming king, and you were right. The Thor you know would have made a very poor king indeed.”

“You have a strange way of attempting to convince me you are Thor. He would sooner cut off his own hand than admit I am right about anything.”

“Experience has been a ruthless teacher. One of its lessons was that I would have done better to listen to my brother’s counsel more.”

Loki stared at him. He’d stopped hoping he would hear words like that from Thor a long time ago. If this was an imposter, he was either extremely stupid or extremely clever.

“The first time I lived this day, by the end of it, I had started a war with Jotunheim and Father banished me to Midgard as a mortal in punishment. It was a punishment I sorely needed, but it meant that I was not here for you when you needed me most.” There was something beyond regret in his voice. Grief.

Loki felt a great sense of foreboding. When he needed Thor most? He suddenly remembered the first odd thing Thor had said, and the foreboding increased tenfold. What had happened? Was it the war with Jotunheim? Had he fallen in battle? “Why did you think you were in Valhalla when you saw me?” he asked.

“Because…” Thor swallowed hard, and thunder rumbled outside. “Less than two days ago for me, you were murdered before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

Loki wasn’t conscious of accepting that this was really Thor, but his hand found its way to his shoulder. Part of him had always believed his elder brother was indestructible and untouchable, the golden prince of Asgard renowned across Yggdrasil for his strength and valor, and the best Loki could ever hope for was to be the shadow trailing in his wake. He had never seen Thor hurting like this, and for all that he had schemed lately to keep him off the throne, the sight of him hunching inward as though he was nursing a gaping chest wound was painful—more so even than the idea of his own death. “I’m here, Brother,” he said. Somewhat awkwardly, as he hadn’t been the one to initiate this in a long time, he pulled Thor into a hug. “You have stopped it, don’t you see?”

Thor let out an incoherent, guttural sound and returned the hug, his shoulders shaking. “I swear to you, I will not fail you again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really have a problem with Thor aiming for the chest with Stormbreaker. Like someone said on Tumblr recently, he was quite a distance away with about 1.5 good eyes, wielding a brand new weapon for the first time, and up against all six Infinity Stones. He's pretty much going to aim for the center of mass and hope for the best at that point. And I also like the idea that, on a symbolic level, Thor is all about heart and not so much about head, so to him it would just make sense to aim for the heart because that's what matters most to him. But anyway, aiming for the center of mass means that the left shoulder is easily within the margin of error, so he can chop that arm right off. The initial impact would be enough to sever all the nerves controlling the arm, which means no finger-snapping for Thanos! Boom.
> 
> One thing I really wish had happened in IW was someone, anyone, calling Thanos out on his utterly crap ideology. Just so we could establish that he won't listen to reason and isn't actually operating on sound logic (this is why him being in love with Death and trying to impress her would've been a better motive for him to have). Thor isn't really the right character to engage Thanos in an ideological debate, but it was still pretty satisfying to write that one paragraph of it.
> 
> What I pictured happening to Thor when he held the Time stone is pretty much the same thing that happened to Red Skull when he held the Tesseract—except that he traveled through time, not space.
> 
> One of the things that particularly intrigued me about this premise was that I do not think Thor would be the typical secretive time traveler, especially in a situation where no one has advised him to keep anything secret and he has no notion of there being any risk of paradox or negative consequences. He's so unabashedly straightforward that I think, if he could go back in time like this, it wouldn't even occur to him to try to act like his younger self enough to avoid suspicion. He'd just get on with doing what's needed to make sure things turn out better this time, and it's such a Thor thing to do that I'm not sure anyone would doubt he really is Thor for very long. But he'd definitely be really emotional about seeing everyone and everything he's lost again.


	2. Know Your Place

Thor eventually mastered himself enough to release his hold on Loki. It was something of a surprise that his brother had allowed the embrace to go on so long, let alone initiated it, but it had gone a long way towards removing any doubts he still had that he was truly back in his own past with a chance to prevent the many calamities he’d lived through. It also gave him hope that things were not so broken between them already that they could not be mended.

Loki was watching him with his brows furrowed slightly in concern. It was hard to believe how much younger he looked. Had it really only been eight years since this moment? He shifted under Thor’s gaze, fidgeting with his hands as he often did when anxious about something. “Well, shall we go to Father, then, or are you going to stand there all night?”

Thor frowned. “On second thought,” he said slowly, “it might be best to wait until after the Odinsleep. As I have no intention of starting a war today, there is no immediate threat.”

“You? Second thoughts?” said Loki with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. “You’ll have me doubting your identity again if you keep this up.”

Thor gave a rueful chuckle. “I’m sorry I cannot put you at ease by blundering my way forward like I always have. There is far too much at stake.” Including his relationship with his brother. He would not settle for merely preventing his death, and he would not make the same mistake he had apparently made all his life—that of assuming that everything was fine just because Loki voiced no discontentment. It had taken him quite a while after the destruction of the Bifrost to understand that his little brother had not simply gone mad over the course of three days. Happy people did not try to destroy entire planets just because they found out they were adopted.

“You don’t even want to show off your sudden maturity to Father so that he will change his mind about cancelling your coronation?”

“No, Mother can be regent as usual. One more time will make little difference. Though perhaps I should recommend you for the throne instead.”

Loki’s mouth fell open in a rather comical fashion, but he quickly snapped it shut again, his face reddening and his fists clenching. “If that was a jest, it was not an amusing one.”

“It wasn’t a jest!” said Thor, hastily stepping out of stabbing range, just in case. “You are far more skilled than I in every area of statecraft. Politics, diplomacy, economics, strategy, negotiation.”

“ _That_ is not the point. Even if I wanted the throne, Asgard wouldn’t have me!”

“Why not? You’re as much a prince as I am.”

Loki gave him a look that was equal parts incredulous and withering. “Perhaps you haven’t gained any wisdom from your dark future after all, if you think the people would be just as content with the silver-tongued trickster ruling over them as their golden warrior prince, especially right after they turned out over a hundred thousand strong just to see you begin your first turn as regent. They would think I had used my ‘cowardly sorcery’ to usurp your place.”

Thor suppressed a wince. Loki’s tone was one of disdain and indifference, but now that he knew to listen for it, he could hear the hurt it masked—the longing for recognition and approval he kept buried deep. Words full of bitterness, rage, and despair echoed through Thor’s mind from another time. _“I never wanted the throne! I only ever wanted to be your equal.”_ Well, he’d just have to show him that he was.

He laid his hand on Loki’s shoulder. He hoped he wasn’t making him uncomfortable with the overflow of affection, but after what he’d been through, he wasn’t likely to be able to contain himself any time soon. “Brother, any who fails to see your worth is a fool, and I am ashamed that there were times when I was such a fool, even though it’s been your sorcery saving my and our friends’ lives every other adventure we’ve ever gone on. I might be the king our people think they want, but you are much closer to being the sort of king they _need_.”

Loki scowled and shrugged Thor’s hand away, but the blush on his pale cheeks told him that he had taken his words to heart, no matter how begrudgingly. “Pretty words, particularly coming from you, but you’re still the firstborn, so don’t think you can simply dump your responsibilities onto me just because you’re finally aware of how unprepared you are to shoulder them.”

They began walking in the direction of the family wing of the palace. The first few minutes passed in comfortable silence. Thor continued to drink in every detail of their surroundings, torn between utter joy that it was still here and anguish over his memories of its destruction.

“Do you truly no longer desire the throne?” Loki asked eventually. Thor looked at him, and Loki raised his hands. “What? All our lives, it’s been ‘when I’m king’ this and ‘when I’m king’ that, and now you’re not even bothered that I brought _Frost Giants_ to Asgard to sabotage your first regency, and you’d rather Mother or I sit on Hlidskjalf in your stead. Forgive me if I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that.”

Thor ran a hand through his hair, still not used to having it at this length again. “I’ll take it if I must, and I’ll do my best to rule our people well and protect them, but the thought gives me little joy.” He smiled, thinking back to his memories of this day. “I remember you asking me if I was nervous before the coronation.”

“Yes, and you laughed me off.”

“I did,” he agreed, “but I should have told you why. Part of it was arrogance and my lack of a true understanding of what it means to rule, but the small part of me wise enough to be nervous was still at ease because I knew I’d have you by my side to make up for the ways in which I might fall short. I may have done a poor job of showing it, but I have always been proud to have you as my brother and my friend.”

“Dear Brother, what _has_ happened to turn you so soft?” Loki said it in a tone of mock disgust, and the pleased blush was back, but Thor felt a pang, remembering when he had hurled almost identical words at him in scathing disdain and rage.

“All those times I spoke of what I’d do as king, I pictured you there as my closest advisor, but I don’t think I’ve ever asked you if that’s what you wanted.”

Loki grimaced and shrugged. “What would be the point? How much freedom does either of us really have to determine what roles we’ll play? You’re for the throne and I’m for whatever advantageous political marriage Mother and Father can arrange.”

“I suppose,” said Thor. “But I can at least see to it you aren’t shipped off to Alfheim or Vanaheim or whatever realm it is to live with your in-laws forever, if you’d rather stay on Asgard.”

Loki frowned at him in a way that reminded him of the elevator on Sakaar, which he took as a good sign. “Are you suggesting that whether or not you lobby to keep me here as your advisor would be up to _me_?”

“Of course,” said Thor. “I’d love to have you here always, but I wouldn’t force you to stay if it wasn’t what you wanted.”

Loki appeared too stunned by this to form a reply. So instead of waiting until the silence could get awkward, Thor changed the subject. “Hey, what do you say we go to Midgard in the morning?”

Loki’s brow furrowed in confusion and perhaps distaste. “Midgard? Why would you want to go there? Isn’t that where you said Father banished you the first time around? I’d have thought you’d never want to go back after that.”

“Of course I want to go back. I made many excellent friends there and we’ll be needing their help, and they ours, if we are to thwart many of the dangers the next few years will hold.”

Loki gave him a rather condescending stare. “The mortals are barely capable of making it to their own moon. What possible help could they be at thwarting dangers like Ragnarok?”

Thor grinned. “I suppose you’ll just have to find out when we get to Midgard, won’t you?”

Loki glared at him. Thor continued to smile brightly, and after a few seconds, Loki rolled his eyes and gave a protracted groan. “Oh, very well, I’ll go with you.”

“Wonderful!” said Thor, thumping Loki on the back hard enough to make him stagger. The prospect of introducing Loki to the Avengers as an _ally_ had him feeling positively giddy. He was sure that Loki and Stark would get on famously, and Loki would be much more use to Jane and Erik in their work than he’d ever been.

The thought of Jane dampened his excitement somewhat as he entered his chambers. He wasn’t sure what he should do where she was concerned. Should he try to court her again? Avoiding the same pitfalls that drove them apart the first time around would not be the same as getting the jump on enemies he knew were coming. None of those factors had changed. His responsibilities to the nine realms would still keep him away from Earth more often than not. The periods of separation that had felt quite brief to him had been much harder for her. He simply hadn’t been free to prioritize her the way she deserved, and though he gladly would have brought her with him to any realm where she would be reasonably safe, she couldn’t leave the groundbreaking work she was doing behind. In the end, just before he left for Muspelheim, they’d come to the unhappy conclusion that it would be for the best if they went their separate ways.

Thor did not think it would be right to start something with Jane that would most likely have to end, but he also thought it was unfair that only he held the memories of their time together. Perhaps it would be easier to decide when he saw her.

X

Thor’s musings on everything he needed to do to make sure things turned out right this time were cut short by a soft knock on his door. “Thor? May I enter?”

His heart seemed to freeze in his chest, and he abruptly ceased his endless pacing. “Yes, Mother.”

The door opened, and Frigga walked in. The mere sight of her alive and whole made him feel like a mortal again, or perhaps like a child. He was powerless to do anything but stare. She was so beautiful.

“I’m so sorry the coronation didn’t go as you hoped, _ástin mín_.” She walked gracefully up to him and lifted a hand to his cheek. “Are you terribly disappointed?”

“No, I am well, Mother,” he said hoarsely, covering her hand with his own. He wanted to hold on and never let go. “I know that under the circumstances, it is best if you act as regent as you have always done before. The Jotnar are less likely to attempt another assault if an experienced ruler sits on Hlidskjalf.”

Her brows drew together and concern filled her eyes. “What is this pain and sorrow I see in you?” she asked.

“It is nothing,” he said. He would _destroy_ Malekith and his Kursed beast before they could so much as lay eyes on her this time.

“It is _not_ ,” she replied firmly.

“It is nothing you need worry over,” he amended, catching her other hand too and giving both of them a reassuring squeeze. “I swear it. There is much I need to discuss with you and Father, but it would be better to wait until he wakes. I beg you not to trouble yourself.”

She did not look entirely satisfied by that, but she nodded and squeezed his hands back. “Very well. But what will you be doing while your father sleeps? I want to be sure you don’t harbor any wild notions of retribution against the Jotnar or something equally reckless.”

Thor smiled, but it was a little bitter. She certainly knew him well. “Nothing like that. I was actually thinking of going to Midgard tomorrow. Loki too.”

“Midgard?” she said, looking intrigued. “It’s certainly been a while since you last went there.”

He seized upon that for his excuse. “Exactly. Heimdall has said that the mortals have made great advancements since my last visit. I would like to see them for myself. Perhaps they are close to a point where we could start engaging them in trade and building an alliance. It would be good to begin laying the foundations for that, would it not?”

“You needn’t worry that I will object,” said Frigga, laughing. “It does seem an excellent idea. Perhaps you will still get something valuable out of this regency even if you aren’t on the throne yourself.”

He beamed at her, relieved. “Thank you, Mother.”

“Well then, I will leave you to get your rest before you go.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and he pulled her to him in a tight hug. Some of the worry returned to her face when they drew apart, but she didn’t press it this time, and left the room.

X

Loki occupied himself with a book until he was sure Thor was asleep (the thunderous snores took far longer to start up than they usually did, but they were rather difficult to miss), then crept down the corridor and into his chambers. For the second time today, he was about to do something he probably shouldn’t, but his curiosity was too strong to ignore. He simply _had_ to know more about this future Thor had lived and which had wrought such profound changes in him.

Thor was sprawled diagonally across his bed on his stomach, arms stuck out to either side, the covers all askew. Loki snorted. He was just as much of a bed-hog now as he had been when they were children sneaking into each other’s rooms because they weren’t used to being out of their shared nursery yet. Loki had woken up on the floor on more than one occasion after going to his big brother’s room for protection from the monsters in his nightmares.

He hesitated for a moment. Breaking into someone else’s mind was one of the darker applications of seidr. It was supposed to be reserved for use against enemies, to expose their weaknesses or gain valuable information. To do it to one’s sleeping brother without his knowledge was a serious breach of trust. But surely the circumstances justified it? If everything truly had gone to Hel in the future Thor had come back from, then he was going to need all the help he could get to save it, and how could Loki help him if he didn’t know any details?

Resolve firming, he crouched beside the bed and pressed the heel of his hand to Thor’s forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like I figured out more stuff I could do with this fic after all! I still can't promise anything when it comes to overall length or number of chapters, but I guess I'll be updating it when the inspiration strikes. "Interventionism" and "My Brother's Keeper" will probably take priority because I'm getting to some fun stuff in the former and the latter has really short chapters that are easy to crank out.
> 
> "Know your place" is one of the least pleasant lines Thor has in any of the movies, so I liked the idea of using it as a chapter title in this fic, where Thor will be doing his best to convey to Loki that his place is right at his side, not in his shadow.
> 
> Now that Thor has had a moment to process the reality of having a second chance, he's getting more strategic, so he won't just infodump about the future, but he's definitely still going to be a much more proactive time traveler than most. 
> 
> "Ástin mín" is an Old Norse endearment like "my darling." Originally I just had Frigga using the English version, but I thought something like this would be better if I could find it, and I did! Yay!


	3. Knowledge Versus Wisdom

There were advantages and disadvantages to using this spell on an unconscious person. The subject didn’t know it was happening—provided he didn’t wake up in the middle of it. Advantage. The subject’s obliviousness meant the intruder was more able to direct what he saw. Advantage. Dreams and fantasy wove together with the true memories, sometimes to the point where it became impossible to tell where fantasy ended and reality began. Disadvantage. The intruder’s own stray thoughts could veer things wildly off course. Disadvantage.

Whether the subject was asleep or awake, entering someone else’s mind was different every time, and it was not something determined by the intruder. Sometimes you became a bodiless observer. Sometimes you watched their memories like a play. Sometimes you could walk freely through the constructs of their psyche as though a visitor in their home, with different memories contained in the different rooms. Sometimes you watched their memories as if through their own eyes.

This time, it seemed to be closest to the third option. First, he found himself standing on the rainbow bridge not far from where the Observatory should have been, except that the great golden sphere was gone. The bridge came to a jagged end, and Father stood at the very edge, holding onto a large, booted foot. Loki peered over and saw that the foot belonged to Thor, who was clutching Gungnir. The Loki of Thor’s memory was holding onto the lower half of Gungnir by one hand. Loki watched himself cry out to Odin, but he couldn’t make out the words. Perhaps Thor had not properly heard them and so could not include them in his memories. The hand slipped farther towards the end of Gungnir’s shaft.

“No, Loki,” said Odin in quiet rebuke. Loki had no idea what this was about, but he watched a light go out in the eyes of the memory version of himself.

“Loki, no!” said Thor, his voice full of dread and pleading. It made no difference, and Loki watched himself deliberately release the end of Gungnir and fall into a swirling vortex below while Thor screamed.

Loki didn’t understand. Thor had said he was murdered, but this… Before he could attempt to make further sense of it, everything blurred and shifted, and now he was standing on a ridge of ash-black soil. The place felt lifeless, and it was lit by what looked like a black hole. Svartalfheim? What the Hel were they doing here? He spun around, wanting to get his bearings as quickly as possible. Thor and another version of Loki—both with rather longer hair than they currently had—were battling...no, it couldn’t be. Dark elves? But they were supposed to be extinct! A woman was standing near where the long-haired Loki was fighting four elves with daggers. She wore Asgardian garb but was rather more petite than most Aesir women and he didn’t recognize her at all. What was more, even if most of them weren’t fully-fledged warriors like Sif, no Aesir maiden who had seen more than six centuries would stand to the side, weaponless, while her princes did battle. Was she a mortal, then?

The long-haired Loki finished off the last of the four dark elves, then glanced over to where Thor, whose opponent looked more like a beast than an elf, was being pummelled into the black dirt. Loki watched his counterpart seize something off one of the elf corpses’ belts, along with one of their split-bladed swords, and sprint over to them. He plunged the sword through the beast’s back. This only seemed to anger it, for it turned and impaled Loki onto the portion of the blade that protruded from its chest. Thor screamed again while Loki gasped, though he also slipped the object he’d grabbed onto the beast’s belt. It hurled him into the sand, where he convulsed around his wound. He mustered enough strength to sneer at the beast. “See you in Hel, monster.”

It realized what he had done and scrabbled madly at its belt, but the device exploded, and the creature was sucked, rather gruesomely, into what appeared to be some kind of weaponized spatial anomaly, like a miniature black hole. Thor heaved himself to his feet and ran to Loki, pulling him into his arms.

The present-day Loki watched this, just as confused as he was by the first scene. Thor wasn’t the most eloquent with his words, but even he wouldn’t have described this as murder, surely. This was an honorable death in battle. The kind any Aesir aspired to—though Loki would have preferred his own to come a few millennia later. Soon, the Loki in Thor’s arms ceased to speak, and his eyes fell closed as an ashy texture spread over his skin. Thor roared in grief. The skies darkened in this dead realm’s equivalent of an oncoming storm, the loose black dirt swirling up everywhere. Within moments, it had obscured everything, and then the scene shifted again.

Now Loki was standing in the wreckage of a spaceship he had never seen before, the floor of which was littered with dead Aesir, as well as a few aliens of various species. An anguished cry that was already becoming far too familiar caused him to spin around, and he saw a large purple alien—a Titan?—pulling a lance out of Heimdall’s chest. What was Heimdall doing on a ship instead of standing at his post? Where had his armor gone, and when had his hair ever been that long?

“You’re going to die for that!” said Thor. Loki was even more startled by his appearance than Heimdall’s. His hair was shorn down to scarcely longer than an inch, there was a patch over his right eye, and the little he could see of him that wasn’t bound in strips of metal looked bruised and dirty. Another strip of metal flew to cover his mouth.

Loki had an extremely bad feeling about all of this. Only one Titan had ever been spoken of on Asgard. The Mad Titan. Father had waged war against him long ago, before the fall of the Valkyrior. But even with their help, it had been a long and bloody war, and Asgard’s victory had not been absolute. Thanos had been driven from Yggdrasil and sealed outside its borders, and the Tesseract, the prize he had failed to claim from Odin, had been hidden away on Midgard. But now, Loki watched as the Titan crushed the Tesseract in his hand and dropped the Space Stone into one of the settings of the golden gauntlet he wore, which looked to be of dwarven make. It already contained a purple stone, and there were four settings remaining.

Loki barely had time to process the horror of what this meant—worse than Ragnarok, indeed—when a version of himself strode into view, past the Titan’s henchmen. He wore leather armor unlike any from Asgard, though still in his usual colors of black and green. He made rather a business of pledging his loyalty to the Titan, but from where the present day Loki stood, he could see the dagger his counterpart conjured behind his back. So could Thor. Were they truly so pressed for options that one dagger was the best he could do? Apparently so, and it was woefully insufficient. The Titan caught his attack in a field of blue energy, then seized him by the throat with his gauntleted hand. He made eye contact with Thor, who strained at his bonds to no avail, and choked the life out of him.

The present day Loki sank to his knees, feeling like he might be sick. Murder. Yes. At last, the term applied. How much of this was accurate to the real events? How much was Thor’s subconscious making alterations?

 _Shift._ They were back on the shattered Rainbow Bridge, but this time it was the one-eyed, short-haired Thor dangling over the edge. Instead of hanging there, holding onto Gungnir, he made a wild grab with his free hand and caught onto Loki before he could let go. “I have you, Brother!” he declared. “It will not be as it was before!”

A cold laugh made Loki jump and Thor awkwardly crane his neck around. A woman with a great horned headdress was standing behind Odin on the bridge. “No,” Odin whispered, but before he could do anything else, she had conjured a wicked-looking black blade in one hand and run him through. Thor and the present-day Loki both yelled, and Odin’s grip slackened. Thor and the dream Loki both fell into the vortex. The woman picked up Mjolnir, which was lying on the bridge, and the scene remained intact long enough for Loki to see the shadow of the her headdress grow until it cast all of Asgard into darkness.

 _Shift._ Loki found himself running in Thor’s wake through the halls of the palace, running as fast as they could go. “Faster, faster! I can change it!” Thor was growling to himself. The hallway appeared to be lengthening before them. “No!” said Thor, and he pressed even faster. Loki was sure he was only keeping up because none of this was real. At last, Thor burst into the room at the end of the corridor—Mother’s private weaving room. He screamed. Loki ran around him and saw that the same creature that had run him through on Svartalfheim had just done the same thing to the Queen of Asgard.

 _Shift_. Svartalfheim again, but now it was the Titan Thor fought. “Dread it,” he said, “run from it...destiny still arrives.”

“NO!” Thor bellowed. Instead of Mjolnir, he fought with an axe wreathed in blue flame. “I’m going to change it! This time I’m going to kill you before you can ever lay a hand on him or anyone else!”

The Titan landed a punch to Thor’s chest, sending him flying back. At the same time, his other hand shot out behind him and closed around the throat of the Loki who had been creeping up on him with a dagger. “It will always end this way,” he said, crushing Loki’s throat while Thor watched. “We stand here on a planet your grandfather killed five thousand years ago, and you think you can prevent the consequences by going back a handful of years? Destiny is coming for you, grandson of Bor, son of Odin, brother of Hela. You and all that you love.”

Thor screamed. His one eye blazed white and lightning sparked off him in every direction, and he sent the axe spinning at the Titan. It thudded home in his chest, and he fell, but there was a dark elf waiting behind him, and the woman with the horned headdress was behind him, sitting astride a massive black wolf, her head thrown back in laughter. Behind her, a fire giant, who grew and grew until he obscured everything else. Thor looked around, and the barren ground was suddenly strewn with bodies besides Loki’s. Frigga. Odin. Heimdall. The Warriors Three. Sif. A dark-skinned Aesir woman in the armor of a Valkyrie. A man in a red and gold suit with a glowing light in the chest. A man in a red, white, and blue suit. A smaller man in nothing but tattered trousers, a greenish tinge fading from his skin. All three appeared to be mortals, and there were several other Midgardians mingled in with the dead Aesir as well.

Loki couldn’t bear any more of this, and Thor’s subconscious was plainly becoming less coherent anyway. He removed his hand from Thor’s forehead in reality, which abruptly severed the connection, flinging him back into his own head.

X

Thor woke very suddenly from a terrible nightmare of death and failure, and he found Loki standing over him, his face white as a sheet. But he barely had time to register his brother’s presence before Loki vanished from sight. A second later, the door flew open and slammed shut again.

It wasn’t hard to work out what had happened. Loki, presented with a mystery as intriguing as what the next eight years might hold that Thor wanted to prevent, had decided that he would take a look inside Thor’s mind rather than wait to be told. As a younger man, Thor would probably have been furious with his brother for that—assuming he had paid close enough attention to put the pieces together in the first place. But now, Thor’s only priority was Loki’s well-being, so he leapt out of bed and went in search of him.

Finding the God of Mischief when he didn’t want to be found was no easy task. Loki had already cloaked himself, and no matter how hard Frigga had tried to teach him, Thor had never quite gotten the hang of sensing illusion magic, let alone seeing through it. The day after her funeral had been a rare exception, due more to Loki’s misery than Thor’s perceptiveness. So to find him now, he went from one to the next of all the places Loki could usually be found, calling out for him. He got no response in Loki’s chambers, the library, or any of the little nooks around the palace where he’d once come across Loki reading. By the time he trudged out to Frigga’s garden, he was losing hope of finding him before morning.

“Loki!” he said loudly, for the hundredth time. “Come out! I’m not angry with you, I only want to talk.” He walked between beds of beautifully cultivated flowers and other plants from all across the nine realms and beyond. “Much of what you saw is what I have lived, and it isn’t even the half of it, but none of it is set in stone. I know we can change it!”

“Do you?” came a voice to his right. He turned and saw Loki materialize beside a tree from Alfheim as he dropped the cloaking spell. “Do you really know that? What if it can’t be changed? You can’t deny that you fear it.”

“I do fear it,” said Thor. “More than anything, I fear having to watch those I love suffer and die all over again. But I won’t let that stop me from trying. I have the advantage over our enemies this time. I know more than they do, and I know what they want and where they must go to obtain it. If I have my way, Mother will never so much as lay eyes on a Dark Elf, Hela will never harm another soul, and you will never be within Thanos’s clutches.”

“Then Hela does exist?” said Loki. Thor could understand why that particular point would be of greater interest to him than Dark Elves or the Mad Titan.

“Yes,” said Thor. “It turns out I’m not the firstborn after all. We have a sister. She’s been imprisoned in Niflheim for her crimes longer than we’ve been alive. Father wiped all knowledge of her from Asgard, but she’s the one who slaughtered the Valkyrior when we were boys. When she got free, she massacred most of our people. All the Einherjar. Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun. In the end, the only way we could stop her was by bringing about Ragnarok.”

A long silence followed this explanation.

“And here I was worried about _you_ on the throne,” said Loki eventually, clearly attempting to lighten his own misgivings with humor, though judging from his grimace, it hadn’t worked very well. “Is she what you want to talk to Father about when he wakes?”

“Not the only thing, but yes.”

There was a pause in which Loki looked around at Frigga’s many carefully tended plants. “The Dark Elves.”

“Not as extinct as we have always believed,” said Thor.

“What happened?”

“We had stumbled upon the Aether by mistake. Malekith and his army came for it, hoping to remake Yggdrasil in the form they chose, at the cost of all other life in its branches. Mother died defending it. That broke Father, I think, and then you were gravely wounded avenging her the very next day. Mortally wounded, it appeared at the time.”

It was difficult to force the words out, and when he looked at Loki, he saw that his eyes were shining and his fists were clenched. “But you stopped Malekith.”

“I did. And this time we will do it before any of that can happen.”

Loki paused again, and Thor saw him picking at the skin of his palm with his fingernails. “Brother,” he said, far more hesitant than he usually sounded. “Did I really attempt to end my own life, or was that mere nightmare?”

Thor closed his eyes, resisting the urge to grab Loki in another hug. “That was real.”

“It looked like it was to happen not long from now.”

“Not long at all. Just three days.”

“Why?” Loki’s tone was one of incredulity mixed with hints of apprehension and contempt.

Thor looked at him. “I could tell you everything I know about that right now,” he said, “but I beg you not to ask it of me.”

Loki’s brow furrowed. “Is it truly so terrible?”

“It was to you, though I have never fully understood why.”

“And you think you can keep me safe by keeping me ignorant of it?” said Loki heatedly.

If Loki thought he could provoke Thor into speaking, he was mistaken. “No,” he said. “I think it all could have been avoided if you had been told long ago, but I am not the right person to tell you. You deserve to hear it from Father.” Loki looked away, not quite managing to conceal an air of sulkiness. “Can you wait until he wakes?” Thor pressed on. “I will speak to him when he does and ensure that you don’t have to wait a moment longer than that.”

Loki took a while to consider. He looked troubled, but after a few seconds, his expression smoothed into something lighter. “The curiosity may drive me mad,” he said with an exaggerated sigh of longsuffering, “so it’ll be up to you to keep me too busy to fret over it.”

“Then you still want to come with me to Midgard?”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know that I’ll ever _want_ to go to Midgard, but I’m not letting you make a mess of this by trying to do it all by yourself.”

Thor smiled. “And I don’t have to worry about you using that spell on me again if I go back to sleep?”

At this, Loki looked slightly chagrined. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “It was wrong of me.”

Thor’s smile became a grin. “It’s alright.” He slapped Loki on the back. “You’re still easily my favorite sibling.”

Loki scowled, and Thor hastily dodged an oncoming dagger, laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I got stuck for a while trying to figure out how Loki was going to experience Thor's memories/nightmares. I tried to write it where Loki saw it all through Thor's perspective, but that didn't work, as much as I liked it when Loki realized Thor only had one eye. As soon as I let go of that idea, it all came pouring out, but then I got stuck again trying to figure out how they were going to react when Thor woke up. Loki fleeing and Thor having to go look for him was the last thing I needed to make the chapter work, and from there it was pretty easy to write the rest. So we have some angst and horror with Loki finding out a bit too much, but it could have been a lot worse. The reason Thor didn't have any nightmares about Loki being a villain is that he had already forgiven him and moved on by the time Thanos killed him. Likewise, Thor wouldn't dream about Loki being a Frost Giant because that doesn't matter to him at all. I should mention, though, before anyone comments that present-day Loki would've heard the lines "I'm not Asgardian" and "rightful King of Jotunheim," that even the dream scenes based mostly on memory are not 100% accurate. This is all subjective recall with additional inaccuracies because Thor is dreaming. That's why Loki couldn't hear what he was saying to Odin in the first one either.
> 
> I will most likely update "Interventionism" and "My Brother's Keeper" before I get back around to this one, but the boys are probably heading to Earth next.


	4. First Encounter, Take Two

The next morning, Thor and Loki broke their fast with Frigga, who informed them that Odin had slipped into the Odinsleep during the night. She watched Thor more closely than usual throughout the meal, but kissed them each on the cheek and wished them well on Midgard at the end of it. Loki noticed that Thor hugged her rather longer than he normally would, and couldn’t help imitating him at the thought of what the Dark Elves had done to her in Thor’s memories.

Halfway to the stables, they were intercepted by Sif, Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun. “Well, Loki, what have you discovered?” said Fandral, while they all shot furtive glances at Thor.

“He is who he says he is,” said Loki. “And everything he said is true.”

“Then why have you not taken the throne?” said Sif to Thor. “We heard that the Allmother is regent once more.”

“There is much I must do, and I cannot do it from Hlidskjalf,” said Thor. “Asgard will be in the most capable hands possible, and I am trusting the four of you to ensure that Mother’s regency goes smoothly.”

“What do you mean?” said Volstagg. “Are you leaving? But you aren’t even wearing your armor!” He gestured at Thor’s leathers and Loki’s black and gold surcoat.

“Loki and I will have little need of armor. We are bound for Midgard. If we are to succeed in creating a better future, we must first reforge the alliances I built there the first time I lived these years.”

“Then surely your need is greater than Queen Frigga’s,” said Hogun.

“Yes,” said Sif. “We will come with you.” Her eagerness was reflected on Fandral’s and Volstagg’s faces as well.

“In time, I do hope to introduce you to my mortal friends,” said Thor, “but for now, I want you here to support Mother. We will return when Father wakes, so you will hardly have time to miss us.” He clapped an arm around Loki’s shoulders as he said it.

Loki, who had been bracing himself for the prospect of visiting the dullest of the nine realms with those four making fools of themselves the whole time, was surprised to hear Thor rebuff them. He couldn’t remember the last time he had declined an opportunity to have them about. The princes had been sent on occasional errands together by Odin or Frigga, of course, but it was a rare thing indeed for Thor to _choose_ to leave Asgard with only his younger brother for company. Loki’s spirits lifted, and he berated himself silently for it. It would be foolish to become too used to this kind of treatment from Thor. Surely once they had dealt with the Dark Elves, Ragnarok, their wayward sister, and Thanos, this unusual surge of affection brought on by his grief from the aborted timeline would settle back to where it had been for the last few centuries.

Sif and the Warriors Three looked just as surprised as Loki felt. “Will we be waiting until you return to do something about the Jotnar who got into the Vault?” said Hogun.

“The Jotnar are not one of the dangers we need to worry about,” said Thor. “I would sooner have them for allies than seek a fight with them now. The more help we have against what’s coming, the better.”

That might just have been the most shocking thing Thor had said since his initial declaration that he had traveled back in time. All five of them gaped at him. Loki was the first to find his voice. “You would trust those monsters to fight alongside us in battle?” he said. Nothing he had seen in Thor’s mind had indicated this particular change of heart, and he found it difficult to credit. “What of your ambition to hunt them down and slay them all?”

“You should not speak of them so,” said Thor. “I was a fool to do so.” He actually sounded pained, though Loki could not imagine why. “Asgard was the victor in a just war, but we are little better than bullies if we cannot treat a defeated foe with respect. The Jotnar should not be under our heel if they can be at our side.”

“Are you quite certain you’ve only come back a _handful_ of years?” said Volstagg.

“You wouldn’t believe how much can change in a short amount of time,” said Thor. “Now, when you report to the throne room, do not speak of any of this to Mother. She does not know that I am from another time. I will tell her, but only after Father wakes.”

“Of course, Thor,” said Fandral. “We will follow your lead.”

“Thank you. Dearer friends I could not ask for.” He embraced each of them again, and then he and Loki continued on to the stables. Gladr and Lettfeti awaited them just inside, already saddled. They mounted and rode for the Rainbow Bridge.

“Have you thought about how you will approach your former friends?” said Loki once they had ridden out past the heart of the city.

“What do you mean?” said Thor. “I will tell them who I am and enlist their help, of course.” He sounded utterly unconcerned about it, which either meant the mortals in question were complete simpletons or that Thor had given the matter very little thought.

Loki resisted the impulse to run a hand over his face. “Then you intend to tell them, as an introduction, that not only are you a prince from another world, but also a time traveler with detailed knowledge of upcoming threats to their own? Has it occurred to you that it might be difficult to persuade them of your truthfulness? Unlike me, Sif, and the Warriors Three, these mortals haven’t met you yet to know of your trustworthiness, and they likely have no concept of magic, other worlds, or time travel. At best, they will think you mad. At worst, dangerous.”

Judging from Thor’s expression, this had not occurred to him at all. But he did not wave off Loki’s concerns as if they were unworthy of consideration. “Then what should I do?” he asked, frowning.

Loki wasn’t used to being given an opportunity to elaborate, but he recovered quickly. “Perhaps you would do better to treat this as a diplomatic mission rather than some kind of reunion,” he suggested. “As princes of Asgard, we could approach them with the goal of forging ties between our two realms and giving them advance warning of coming threats, which we are naturally in a better position to know about than they are with their primitive technology. That would be a far easier story to sell, and it would achieve the same goal.”

“You are probably right, but that all sounds so _formal_ ,” Thor groaned, throwing his head back and looking petulant. “These were my friends!”

“Are you saying that befriending a group of mortals for the second time is too difficult a task for you? _You_?”

“The problem is that the Avengers aren’t a group at all yet. Before Thanos sent his Chitauri army to invade, they didn’t have a reason to come together as a team. I don’t know that any of them have even met each other, apart from Romanoff and Barton. And the only reason Thanos took the risk of sending the Chitauri in the first place was that the Bifrost was destroyed and Asgard was unable to provide an army for Midgard’s defense. And a few of the Avengers will never even exist if that invasion doesn’t happen, because with it came the Mind Stone.”

Thor had slumped a little in his saddle and his brow had furrowed by the time he fell silent, as though the full weight of every factor he needed to account for as he sought to change time for the better had only just settled over him him. Loki reined his chestnut steed closer to her pure white cousin so that he could reach out to grip Thor’s shoulder. “Patience, Brother. You’ve said yourself that we have time. Just as Great-Grandfather Buri did not build Asgard in a day, we do not need to save Yggdrasil in a day either.”

Thor’s expression softened into a fond, faraway smile. “You cannot know how I have missed this. You and me, off on an adventure. In some ways, I have returned to a simpler time. It gives me hope.”

“Yes, and you’ve returned an enormous sap,” said Loki, cuffing Thor over the head.

Thor laughed and retaliated in kind, putting Loki in a brief headlock that left them both in danger of falling off their horses.

They reached the Observatory moments later. A broad smile stole over Thor’s face as he strode inside to greet the Gatekeeper. “Heimdall! I cannot tell you how good it is to see you.”

“Can you not?” said Heimdall, sparing one hand from Hofund’s hilt to return Thor’s hug. “My eyes have not deceived me, have they?”

“No,” said Thor.

“Then where on Midgard shall I send you?”

“Really?” said Loki. “No other questions for my time-traveling brother?”

“I have many questions, but questions have a way of answering themselves if I only wait and observe.”

“There are things beyond your sight that we must find,” said Thor.

“The Dark Elves,” said Heimdall.

“And Thanos.” At this, Heimdall’s impenetrable mask of calm actually flickered. “You could not see them before, but perhaps that is only because you didn’t know they were there to be seen.”

“I will look, my prince.”

“May the Allfathers guide your gaze,” said Thor.

X

They landed on the desert sand in a whirl of dust. It was roughly the same time of day on this part of Midgard as on Asgard, which meant it was about mid-morning.

“Now, where are these friends of—,” Loki began, but Thor cut him off with a hand to his chest. The dust still made it impossible to see, and Thor was listening hard. This wouldn’t necessarily happen the same way as before, but just in case… He heard a screech of metal and rubber, and he seized Loki by his surcoat and pulled him out of the way, just in time for a large vehicle to come swerving right across where they had been standing. It couldn’t have done much damage to either of them, but the truck would not have been so fortunate, and Thor had learned that such contraptions could be very costly to repair.

“What the Hel?!” said Loki indignantly. “Did they just try to attack us?”

“Not quite,” said Thor, unable to suppress his grin. At last, the dust began to settle, revealing the truck and its three very familiar occupants, all of whom were gaping at them through the windshield. He lifted a hand and waved at them, his grin widening.

“That woman,” said Loki sharply. “She was on Svartalfheim.”

“Indeed she was,” said Thor, his grin slipping a little as his stomach lurched.

Jane, Darcy, and Erik all climbed cautiously out of the truck.

“Sorry we almost hit you,” said Jane. Her eyes roved over them, taking in their distinctly non-Midgardian clothing. “We couldn’t see anything in that dust.”

“Uh…is there a LARP convention around here that we didn’t know about?” said Darcy. “Also, if hunks like this are LARPing these days, I’m gonna go trade my iPod for an elven princess costume _right_ now.”

“Darcy, shut up!” Jane hissed. She ran a hand through her hair and flashed Thor and Loki an awkward smile. “Ignore her. Do you guys need a ride some...where?” She frowned. Like Erik, she seemed to have just noticed that there was no other vehicle in the vicinity, and she had also noticed the burn patterns on the ground between them. Her eyes went very wide and her mouth dropped open.

“If you’re wondering how we arrived here, perhaps you noticed the dramatic pillar of rainbow light that touched down on this spot a moment ago?” said Loki politely, though there was an undercurrent of glee in his voice. For all his moaning about how dull Midgard was, he had always enjoyed showing off in front of mortals.

“A-are you saying you were _inside_ that event?” said Jane.

“Yes,” said Thor. “I am Thor Odinson, this is my brother Loki. We are the princes of Asgard, and we have come by Bifrost to forge an alliance with your realm.”

“That’s not possible,” said Erik faintly. Thor could tell that he wanted to be skeptical, but the compelling evidence of the Bifrost and the marks it had left on the ground were making that difficult for him.

“Wow, you guys don’t break character for anything,” said Darcy. “I can respect that.”

“I understand if you require proof,” said Thor. He turned to Loki. “Should you do the honors, or should I?”

“Allow me,” said Loki. “If you do it, you might break something.” And with a flourish of his hand, there were suddenly several simulacra of Loki standing shoulder-to-shoulder next to him. Darcy let out a yelp and two sparking coils of metal shot from the device in her hand and passed harmlessly through one of them.

“I believe that was sufficient,” Thor muttered, and Loki made the simulacra vanish. “Though if you require further demonstrations, we would be happy to oblige.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It actually took me a while to figure out what the heck to do with this chapter. I stalled out after writing a long scene a couple weeks ago, because nothing else seemed to fit with it. That scene ended up on the cutting room floor, but I might be able to repurpose it for a future chapter. 
> 
> Thor and Loki's horses are a couple of the named horses from Norse mythology. Gladr means "bright" and Lettfeti means "light-footed." They seemed like good names to go with the actual horses we saw them riding over the Rainbow Bridge in canon.
> 
> This was the first time I've written Jane, Darcy, or Selvig, and so far they're pretty fun to write. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do Darcy justice, but her lines practically wrote themselves, and I'm super happy with them.


	5. The Land of Enchantment

“So if you guys are really from another planet, why did you show up in the middle of nowhere and not, like, Washington or New York or something?” said the one called Darcy, elbow hanging over the top of the front seat as she gaped at Loki and his brother, who were folded somewhat uncomfortably into the back. The vehicle seemed to be of rather flimsy construction—sturdy enough to suffice for mortals, but Loki was sure he could easily bend the metal with his fingers if he cared to try, and there had been several ominous sounds when they climbed in.

“The Bifrost connects with other realms at fixed locations,” said Thor. “Our options were limited. But now that we’re here, travel will not be difficult.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay a while?” said Jane, the woman Loki had seen in Thor’s memory of Svartalfheim, glancing at them through the little mirror above the vehicle’s front window. “You’re from another planet! There’s so much I’d like to ask you.”

“Artificial planetoid, technically,” said Loki.

“Artificial?” said Jane.

“Yes,” said Thor. “Our great-grandfather built it some twelve thousand years ago.”

“It isn’t spherical,” said Loki, “but it does have gravity, an atmosphere, and arable land sufficient to support the population.”

“Jane, the road!” said Erik, and Jane tore her astonished eyes away from them back to the meager dirt track, from which they had been veering substantially to the left. With a small yelp, she jerked the steering device clockwise and they were all tossed about a bit as they swerved back onto the path.

“If your great-grandfather was around twelve thousand years ago, how old does that make you two?” said Darcy, who seemed wholly unperturbed by Jane’s dubious ability to pilot the vehicle.

“Just a few years past a thousand,” said Thor. “We only came of age two centuries ago.”

The girl gave a low whistle.

“Wait, but how does that work?” said Jane. “Norse Mythology is way older than that, and you guys are kind of the central figures of it, but you’re saying you only reached adulthood in the last two hundred years?”

“Most of the Midgardian tales we appear in are a mixture of prophecy and fancy,” said Loki. “Very drunken fancy, I expect. For one thing, Sleipnir is older than I am.”

Thor snickered. Loki summoned a dagger and held it up threateningly. Thor raised his hands with an innocent grin. Deciding it might be a poor show of gratitude for the Midgardians’ hospitality if he got his brother’s blood all over their vehicle, Loki reluctantly let the dagger fall back into his dimensional pocket. For the time being.

“Why did you choose now to come to Earth?” said Erik. He had easily been the quietest of the group thus far, and had spent most of the time since Loki’s demonstration of seidr casting him and Thor (but mostly him) suspicious looks.

“Because this realm is under Asgard’s protection,” said Thor. “And there are dangers approaching that we must all be ready for.”

“Dangers?” said Jane. “What do you mean?”

“Warlords from other worlds with armies that would destroy all life as we know it. They are enemies we once thought defeated, but we will not make that mistake again.” With a jolt, Loki realized that this was true, and not just for Thor, who was living this time over again. The Dark Elves, Surtur, Thanos, and presumably Hela had all fought Asgard before and lost, but they had not been defeated soundly enough. Had that been arrogance or misplaced mercy?

“And we’re supposed to take your word for it?” said Erik. “You show up here like figures from legend and tell us we need to work with you to defeat extraterrestrial enemies we’ve never heard of. How do we know you’re not the enemies and this isn’t some trick to take advantage of Earth?”

Loki expected Thor to take offense at the challenge to his honor, but it seemed he still hadn’t gotten used to this wiser, more world-weary version of his brother. He inclined his head at Erik. “We cannot expect you to give us your trust so easily, especially not when it concerns the fate of your world. There will be time before the threats grow imminent, and we intend to prove ourselves to you before then.”

X

Phil Coulson was taking a well-deserved break from his babysitting assignment, enjoying a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns. He’d get an alert if Stark broke house arrest, and the guy hadn’t left his basement workshop in over a day. He was just thinking of giving Audrey a call when his phone rang. He flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Coulson.”

 _“I’ve got a new assignment for you.”_ It was Director Fury.

Well, Coulson certainly wasn’t going to complain. “What’s that?” he said, smiling at the waitress who had come over to refill his coffee.

_“The civilian tip line just got a very strange call from Puente Antiguo, New Mexico.”_

“Strange how? An 084?”

_“Not exactly. A couple of astrophysicists who’ve been working out there for a while were out in the desert studying some kind of weather anomaly when two young men claiming to be the mythological Thor and Loki appeared, seemingly beamed down to Earth in a pillar of rainbow light.”_

“Well that’s...different. I’m guessing you have a good reason to think it’s not a hoax.”

_“The call came after we got reports of the weather anomaly, and so far at least two other witnesses can confirm the pillar of rainbow light. See what that’s about, will you? I’ll send you Barton and Sitwell. It might still be a hoax, but I’d like to be sure. Between Stark’s ego and the big green dude tearing up that university in West Virginia, I’d rather not have any more surprises this week.”_

“What do you want to do about Stark?”

_“Looks like he’s spent the morning buying everything he needs to make a particle accelerator and having it all shipped to his house. I’ve got a feeling that should keep him busy for a while.”_

X

They had been on Midgard for a few hours now. The mortals had brought them to a strange, round, metal structure at the end of a street in a small settlement. Erik and Darcy had been attempting, with uncertain success, to contact government authorities, but Loki’s attention was increasingly drawn away from these efforts, for Jane had embarked on an endless series of questions about Asgard and life on other worlds that Thor was eagerly answering. However, Loki noticed that whenever Jane’s eyes weren’t on him, Thor’s expression would tighten as though he had a dagger between his ribs. After Jane asked five questions in a row about the Bifrost and how it worked, Thor produced a book from the small satchel he’d packed on Asgard and pressed it into her hands. “The complexities of the Bifrost are beyond my understanding, I’m afraid, but this book may provide some answers for you.”

Loki decided it was time to intervene. “A word, Brother?”

Thor looked around at him in mild surprise while Jane stared at the book as though it was a priceless treasure. “Of course,” he said, and he followed Loki to a dusty patch of ground behind the building. “What is it?”

Loki rounded on Thor, arms folded and eyes narrowed. “Why did you instruct Heimdall to set us down here? It will take hours for the mortals to summon authority figures, and even then we will not have a clear path to any of your Avenger friends. Are we only here so you can court Jane Foster again?”

Thor closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping. “Are my feelings that obvious?”

“Are they ever not?” 

Thor chuckled, but it was a hollow sound. “I have not come here to court Jane, but I would ask your advice about her.”

“You would?” 

“Yes, and I beg you not to mock me for it,” said Thor. Loki thought that might prove a difficult temptation to resist, because Thor rarely became embarrassed, and yet he was getting surly and his cheeks had turned pink.

“I won’t promise anything, but I’ll at least make an effort.”

“How considerate,” said Thor. He swallowed, gazing out at the featureless desert. “When Father banished me, Jane and her friends were the ones who gave me food and shelter until I regained my powers.”

“Oh?” said Loki slyly. “And how did you repay her?”

Thor shot him an indignant look. “You call this making an effort? Come on, Loki, I’m trying to confide in you!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Loki, holding up his hands and smoothing his expression to neutrality. “Please continue.”

“After the Bifrost was rebuilt and the Dark Elves defeated, I courted Jane for a few years. We cared for each other very deeply, but we both had responsibilities that intruded, and in time it became clear that we were on separate paths.”

Loki was not in the least surprised to hear that such a courtship had ultimately failed. Mortal lives were so fleeting that it would be foolish to even entertain the idea in the first place, and their respective positions certainly did not help matters. “So what is it that you need my advice about?”

“I thought to hide what I felt, but if you could find me out so quickly, then perhaps others—perhaps Jane will as well. I don’t want to hurt her, but her work could be essential to our success in thwarting Malekith, and perhaps even Thanos. And learning of Asgard and the Bifrost enabled her to advance her people’s understanding of astrophysics much farther than she could have done otherwise. I wouldn’t deprive her of that knowledge just for my own comfort.”

“Which is why you brought a book about the Bifrost to give her.”

“It was her favorite book from Asgard.”

“But you don’t mean to court her again?”

Thor sighed. “The obstacles that drove us apart haven’t changed. If anything, my duties to Asgard and the other realms are even more pressing now than they were the first time. I do not know how long it will be until I am free to show her the devotion she deserves. Likely I never will be.” He looked rather miserable about it. Despite how ridiculous the situation was, Loki couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him.

“I think you have the right of it,” he said. “If you don’t see a way forward, then you shouldn’t court her.”

“It would be so much better if we could at least be on even footing,” said Thor. He ran a hand through his hair. “I wondered whether...whether you could share my memories of our time together with her.”

Loki recoiled, revolted. “I will do no such thing!” he exclaimed, making Thor wince. “The only way to transfer memories from your mind to hers would be by using myself as a conduit, and I have no interest in having images of my own brother’s fumbling attempts at courtship and love-making stuck in my head for the rest of my life. Besides, I’m sure she’s better off without memories of you ruining her for mortal men.”

“Then what am I to do?” said Thor, throwing up his hands in frustration. “We’ve already established that I’m hopeless at concealing my heart.”

“If you can’t keep your composure around her, then perhaps you should tell her everything and let her decide what to do with it.”

Thor grimaced.

Loki’s brow furrowed as he watched his brother. “I do not envy you the position into which you’ve been placed,” he said. “Are you terribly heartbroken over her?”

Thor gave another painfully forced chuckle and plastered a smile on his face. “Just enough to make this uncomfortable. Perhaps I should simply leave the rest of the talking to you.”

Loki patted Thor on the shoulder, at which the smile became more genuine.

“You did the same thing when you found out it was over between me and Jane in the other timeline too.”

Loki smirked. “Some things never change.”

X

By mid-afternoon, Coulson was pulling up to a bizarre round building whose original purpose he could not guess. Sitwell had briefed him on everything they knew about the situation on the drive from the airstrip. It was enough to be reasonably sure that Drs. Selvig and Foster, at least, believed Thor and Loki really were who they said they were, which was why Fury had sent two high-ranking agents to deal with this instead of a pair of trainees, and why Barton was now getting set up on a nearby roof.

A tall, middle-aged man emerged from the building as they climbed out of the car.

“Dr. Selvig?”

“I wasn’t sure anyone was going to come,” he said.

“You and your colleague didn’t strike us as the type to make up a story like this,” said Sitwell.

“Who are you?” said Selvig.

“Agents Coulson and Sitwell, from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division,” said Coulson. He and Sitwell held up their badges.

Selvig nodded. “They’re in here.”

They followed Selvig inside, where two young women (Dr. Foster and her intern Darcy, according to Sitwell’s information) were sitting across a table from two young men who looked like they’d come straight from a Renaissance festival, one wearing polished leather armor and the other some kind of fancy cross between a full-length duster and a tunic. Definitely not how Coulson would have expected alien princes to look. His skepticism increased. Dr. Foster was having an animated discussion with the one who matched the description of “Loki” over a book that lay open on the table between them, but aside from the fact that “Thor” had biceps the size of his head, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about either man.

The sound of the door closing made the four of them look around. On spotting Coulson, Thor first looked like he’d been kicked in the stomach and then like Christmas had come early. He leapt to his feet and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Loki elbowed him hard in the ribs and stepped in front of him. “Well met. Are you the government officials?” he said smoothly. He sounded English.

“This is Agent Coulson and Agent Sitwell,” said Selvig. “They’re from the Strategic Homeland…” He faltered, shooting a glance at Coulson.

“SHIELD,” said Coulson. “We’re here to investigate a very unusual report about princes from another world. Thor and Loki, I presume?”

“That is correct,” said Loki.

“Well met, Son of Coul,” said Thor, stepping forward extending a hand towards Coulson. Slightly bemused, Coulson reached out to shake hands, but Thor clasped his whole forearm and clapped him on the shoulder, his gaze intent.

“Uh, thanks?” said Coulson. It took a second or two before Thor let go. Coulson shared a mystified glance with Sitwell, who did not receive the same reception. Since this guy was either fully committed to his act or the real deal, Coulson decided to play along. “Why don’t we talk about your goals for your visit to our planet? I’ve been told you’re interested in an alliance, which is always nice to hear.”

“Indeed we are,” said Thor.

“Earth’s technology and science have advanced to the point where diplomatic relations with Asgard could be mutually beneficial in the long term,” said Loki.

“Okay,” said Sitwell. “What about the short term?”

“There are powerful beings who seek to do harm to your world as well as ours,” said Thor. “If we are to defeat them, then the mightiest heroes of Earth and of Asgard will need to work together, and the sooner we begin, the better our advantage.”

Coulson raised his eyebrows. If this was some elaborate attempt to get an introduction to Iron Man, he had to give them points for creativity, but they could’ve just gone to the Stark Expo instead of wasting taxpayer money with the charade. “That all sounds great, but unless you fellas can back up your claims, I think we’re done here.”

Loki smirked at Thor. “Well, then. I believe it’s your turn, Brother.”

Thor grinned. “In that case,” he said, tossing an enormous hammer into the air and catching it again, “we should go outside.”

“Facebook is gonna love this,” said Darcy.

“Miss, be advised that if we do see anything worth recording, we’re going to have to confiscate your phone,” said Sitwell.

She slipped the device back into her pocket with a sullen expression, and they all followed Thor out the back.

“Barton?” Coulson muttered.

 _“Going on a fieldtrip, huh?”_ he said over the comms.

“Something like that.”

When Coulson and Sitwell made to keep up with Thor once they were all about twenty yards from the building, Loki caught them both across the chest. “I’d stand back if I were you.”

“Why?” said Sitwell. “What’s he going to do that he doesn’t want us seeing up close?”

Loki shrugged. “Do as you please, but remember that I warned you.”

Coulson noticed that Selvig, Foster, and Darcy all seemed very content to stay where they were. He decided to follow their example, and, reluctantly, Sitwell did the same. All eyes turned to Thor as he continued to move away from them. Coulson was about to ask Loki what they were supposed to be waiting for when the first rumble of thunder sounded. He stared up at the sky, and his mouth fell open. It was like watching a timelapse nature film, but in real life. Where there had been nothing but cloudless blue a few seconds ago, heavy storm clouds were now gathering, casting the whole desert into shadow.

He looked back at Thor, who had turned to face them all with his enormous grin, scarlet cape blowing behind him in the rising wind. Coulson had to admit that it was an impressive sight. He barely had time to wonder if this was the whole demonstration when Thor raised the hammer high over his head. Lightning struck. Everyone but Loki belatedly threw their hands up either to cover their ears from the deafening thunderclap or to shield their eyes from the blinding flash.

 _“Hey Coulson?”_ said Barton. A high-pitched ringing sound made him a little hard to hear.

“Yeah?” said Coulson faintly.

_“I think I’m a believer.”_

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not really interested in doing a whole lot with Jane, Selvig, and Darcy, but they are important enough to Thor and the canon plot that they needed to be in the story at least this much, and now that Thor and Loki have proven their alien prince credentials to Coulson, things can get moving. Conveniently, the events of the first Thor film overlap with a couple other Phase One movies, and I have finally figured out what I want to do about that. *rubs hands together* This should be fun.


	6. House of Spies

Within hours of Thor’s thunderstorm demonstration, he and Loki had bid Jane, Darcy, and Erik farewell so they could be escorted across the country to SHIELD’s headquarters. It was a strange journey, to be confined in a Quinjet with his brother, a man his brother had murdered right in front of him, a man his brother had puppeteered, and one of the Hydra villains yet to be unmasked.

Loki would remain innocent and ignorant of those and all his other crimes in this timeline if Thor had anything to say about it, which meant that Agent Sitwell’s allegiance was the only real problem here. Thor had known merely a fraction of the treacherous SHIELD agents’ names, and he remembered even fewer, but he could not forget Sitwell, the lone Hydra operative he had met before Rogers exposed them and recruited the Avengers to take them down.

Barton was piloting the Quinjet and Coulson was alternating between making light conversation with Thor and Loki and with his colleagues. Sitwell didn’t often look at the princes, but he was clearly wary of them. Thor waited for a lull where Coulson was talking to Sitwell before leaning closer to Loki. “I must ask your advice again, Brother.”

All children of Asgard were taught two languages. The first was the common tongue, a High Vanir dialect from when Buri first founded Asgard as a military outpost of Vanaheim. The second, which took on average a century to master—and the written form even longer—was Allspeak.

There was also a third language, developed alongside Allspeak but for the opposite purpose. It had no name and was taught only to royalty and high-ranking military officials. Where Allspeak used continuous spellwork to remove language barriers, the nameless tongue used spellwork to render the speaker’s words incomprehensible to any but the intended audience. Even a master of linguistics or someone fluent in Allspeak could spend the rest of their lives attempting to translate what they heard and get nowhere. It was as valuable a resource for maintaining the security of the realm as Allspeak was for diplomatic relations with others. Thor hadn’t often had occasion to use it before now.

Loki met his gaze with a raised eyebrow. “Why the secrecy? Do you not trust these men?”

“I would trust Coulson and Barton with my life.”

“Ah, then we do this for Sitwell’s benefit.”

“As well as any recording devices,” said Thor. “The SHIELD has been infested to its core with another organization called Hydra. They seek to sow enough fear and chaos across Midgard that good people will believe they must turn to them for protection. Much of the work I did as an Avenger was helping my Midgardian companions put Hydra’s operations to an end, but if those events follow their original course, they will not be discovered within SHIELD for at least two years.”

“So you’re wondering if you should move against them sooner.”

Thor nodded.

“As a rule, spies are a suspicious lot,” said Loki. As though to illustrate his point, Coulson’s and Sitwell’s spines had grown noticeably stiffer since they began speaking this way, though they had not paused their own conversation. “Why should the ones you trust believe you that the colleagues they have worked with for years are untrustworthy? If you succeeded in defeating Hydra before, altering your approach could jeopardize that victory.”

Thor frowned. How many people would Hydra kill and how many deadly devices would they acquire in all that intervening time? He misliked the idea. Loki could obviously tell, for he offered, “However, if the changes we’re already making lead to trouble with these Hydra operatives, perhaps we could have Heimdall watch them and make a list of their names so that we can take action if we need to.”

“That is wise,” said Thor.

Loki smirked. “That’s what I’m here for.”

This got a laugh out of Thor, and he clapped Loki on the back. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“Enough of that,” said Loki, giving Thor a shove, which only widened Thor’s grin. He returned his attention back to the SHIELD agents, whose postures had lost much of their tension at the sight of these brotherly antics.

Thor and Loki received many a perplexed stare when they reached the Triskelion. The sight amused him, and he thought Loki was enjoying it too, by the dancing glint in his eye. They were taken to a large conference room where Director Fury was waiting, Maria Hill at his side, along with a shorter man Thor did not recognize. Thor was getting better at resisting the urge to shout a greeting whenever he saw someone he had known before, but he doubted he would ever become accustomed to being looked at with such wariness by former friends and allies. He was quickly gaining a new appreciation for what a valuable commodity trust was.

Barton, Coulson, and Sitwell all took seats at Fury’s end of the table, leaving the other end to Thor and Loki.

“So, the God of Thunder and the God of Mischief,” said Fury. “And here we all thought you were myths.”

“Looks like we were mythtaken,” said Coulson. Hill and Sitwell rolled their eyes, the shorter man's jaw tightened, and Fury’s expression went even flatter, but Barton quietly fist-bumped Coulson under the table. Thor snorted and Loki allowed himself another smirk.

“Your myths are are woefully inaccurate,” said Loki as he and Thor sat down, “but yes, we are real.”

“Allow us to formally welcome you to Earth,” said the man sitting next to Fury. “I’m Alexander Pierce, Undersecretary to the World Security Council, and this is Director Fury of SHIELD and Deputy Director Hill.” Thor kept his expression neutral with difficulty. He certainly remembered Pierce’s name. Rogers had had much to say about the leader of Hydra. If he was here now, it boded ill for their negotiations.

Sure enough, the next half hour was very trying. While Fury took charge of the discussion, Hydra’s influence was clear. Thor could understand their desire to ensure that the two powerful alien princes and the world they came from were not a threat, but what Fury and Pierce proposed went far beyond reasonable caution. Did Fury realize that he was outlining a plan in which Thor and Loki could only prove their intentions were good by subjecting themselves to what bordered on experimentation by and servitude to SHIELD? Flickers of confusion and doubt from Barton, Coulson, and Hill at various points only proved that something was wrong.

“Will you agree to these terms?” Fury concluded.

Thor was trying to think of a diplomatic way to refuse when Loki leaned forward over the table, his eyes narrowed and his lip curled in a sneer. “We have come to warn you of enemies heading your way, and we have offered to help you prepare for them and defeat them. I fail to see how subjecting my brother and me to a battery of tests of our capabilities, running numerous scans on our persons, or collecting samples of our blood should be at all warranted. We are the Sons of Odin, Allfather of Asgard, Protector of the Nine Realms. Do not trifle with us. We are not oddities for you to study and we are not dogs you can put on a leash. You _need_ the help we offer freely if you are to survive.”

Fury raised an eyebrow. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s a fact,” said Thor. “Would that our realms could treat together under better circumstances, but that will have to wait until we have weathered the coming storms.”

“Why’s an advanced civilization like Asgard interested in what happens to a little backwater planet like ours?” said Barton.

“Your world sits at the heart of the nine realms of Yggdrasil,” said Loki. “A kind of cosmic crossroads. It is true that your technology is rather primitive and there is currently little of value you could offer us in terms of trade, but we cannot allow Midgard to fall into the wrong hands.”

“Several conquering armies have coveted it in the past for its strategic position,” said Thor. “The Shi’ar, the Jotnar, the Kree.” At this last one, he was surprised to see Fury, Pierce, and Coulson exchange a brief, alarmed glance, but he went on as though he’d noticed nothing, “Asgard has fought all of them back.”

“If you’re so good at protecting us from afar, then why make contact at all?” said Hill.

“Not so long ago, you succeeded in taking your first steps beyond the boundary of this planet,” said Loki. “It may only be decades before you are capable of entering a field of play you have never dreamed of. Surely you would prefer not to stumble onto it blind?”

“Maybe not, but in my experience, the guys with the most power aren’t generally interested in helping the people at the bottom get power of their own,” said Fury. “They’re only interested in making sure the pecking order never changes.”

“You don’t understand,” said Thor. He had grown so frustrated that it came out more like a growl, and he had to press his hands flat to the table to stop himself clenching them into fists. The level of static electricity in the room was also rising, and he had to keep that under control too. Causing a thunderstorm just now would not be helpful. “Our fates are bound together. A slumbering army of Dokkalfar lurks in unknown space, awaiting their chance to tear down our universe and replace it with darkness. They do not have the weapon they need to accomplish this, but if they obtain it, Asgard will fall as surely as Earth. And the Dokkalfar are nothing to the Mad Titan, who, with his world-destroying legions, is after that same weapon as part of a set of six—one of which he already possesses—and if he unites them all, he will wipe out half of all sentient life with a single snap of his fingers. Earth cannot hope to defeat these enemies alone, and even Asgard may not prevail against them, for they are not our only concerns. It is not just that you need us to survive; we need _each other_.”

Perhaps he was only seeing what he wanted to see, but Thor thought Coulson and Hill, at least, looked somewhat convinced.

“Alright, how would _you_ propose to prove Earth can count you as allies?” said Fury.

“Give us a mission,” said Thor. “Something real. We each have centuries of experience in battle, so find us a battle where you would not risk your own warriors.”

“To be clear,” said Loki before any of the humans could answer, “Whatever this mission is, Asgard is not interested in becoming embroiled in squabbles between individual nations of Midgard. We will gladly do battle with any threat to civilians, but we will not be artillery for one government to brandish at another.”

There was a pause, and then Fury nodded. “We might be able to come up with a job for you.”

Pierce looked at him sharply. “Could we have the room for a few minutes?” he asked. Coulson, Barton, Hill, and Sitwell all stood up and headed for the door. Thor and Loki followed, though Thor thought he saw the briefest flash of gold out of the corner of his eye. None of the humans had noticed.

X

“You’re still in the room, aren’t you?” said Thor in the nameless tongue once they were all waiting outside in the corridor.

“Obviously,” said the projection Loki had sent with the others, while his real body remained cloaked from view inside the conference room.

“Well don’t get caught.”

“What do you take me for?”

Thor scowled. Loki grinned. What did Thor expect? That he was going to wait patiently outside while a pair of mortals discussed what to do with them? Particularly after the way Thor had reacted when the shorter one introduced himself, and after what they’d already said straight to their faces?

Within the room, Alexander Pierce seemed to be forcing himself to remain calm. It was a moment before he spoke. “What are you doing, Nick?” he said. “Are you really just going to capitulate to the demands of a couple of aliens we know nothing about?”

“I’m not sure I’d call them ‘demands.’ It seems like a pretty reasonable request that we don’t treat royalty from a powerful world that might be friendly like lab rats.”

Pierce narrowed his eyes. “You were never going to insist on the tests in the first place, were you?”

“No. I just wanted to see how they’d react to something that outrageous. You saw how desperate Thor was. That was a man who’s afraid he might lose everything he loves, and he thinks working with Earth is his best shot. I don’t think they’re lying about what’s coming.” Loki raised invisible eyebrows, impressed. Fury was a perceptive man.

“And what if they turn out to be the threat?” said Pierce. “Or if they do help Earth defeat these alien warlords, only to turn around and conquer it as a prize? How are we supposed to fight back if we don’t even know what they are or what they’re capable of?”

“If we treat them like enemies when they’re offering an alliance, then we won’t be giving them any choice _but_ to be our enemies.”

“So you want to just throw a couple of powerful unknowns into an already volatile situation and trust that their goals will align with ours?”

“Not really, but thanks to General Ross, I’ve got at least one powder keg about to go off, and the Council tied my hands. I don’t have the funding to send in any kind of response team if Ross pokes that large, green bear again, but now there might be another option.”

“You think Thor and Loki could bring Banner in?”

“Something like that. They want a job defending civilians against a situation we wouldn’t risk our own men on? It seems like the perfect fit.”

Pierce exhaled through his nose. “If this goes sideways…”

“Then I will take full responsibility.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was expecting this to be another building block chapter, where nothing particularly exciting happens but the stuff it covers is too important to moving the story forward for me to skip, but writing a Hydra-compromised SHIELD that doesn't know it's Hydra-compromised turned out to be way more tense and interesting than I thought. I really loved writing Nick Fury, and Pierce makes a fascinating foil for him.
> 
> I don't think the Aesir have an encrypted anti-Allspeak language for talking about secrets in the comics, but they totally should. If magic can work as an auto-translate system, it should be able to do the opposite, and something like that would be ridiculously useful for a state that spent so many millennia engaged in conquering worlds. 
> 
> Brownie points to whoever spots the Buffy reference. I couldn't resist.


	7. Field Work

After Fury and Pierce’s (as far as they knew) private meeting, Thor and Loki were supplied with SHIELD level 3 security lanyards to wear around their necks, which gave them access to the mess hall, briefing rooms, and lodgings. Coulson was assigned to be their attaché for the duration of their visit to Earth, meaning that it was his job to explain their assignment to them and accompany them wherever they went.

They ate a fairly tasteless meal with him in the mess hall—Thor thinking wistfully of drinking with Erik Selvig and helping Jane cook breakfast as he ate an assortment of limp steamed vegetables, noodles in cheese sauce, and some kind of breaded meat that seemed unlikely to have come from an actual animal—before he showed them to their quarters. From ceiling to floor, everything in their adjoining rooms was a sterile white, but they were serviceable enough. Royalty Thor and Loki might be, but in their adventures they had spent many a night sleeping on nothing but bare ground (and it had only been days for Thor since he’d been crammed in a psychedelic party ship with a few thousand Aesir for several weeks); they were used to less than ideal sleeping arrangements.

In the morning, after a breakfast only slightly less bland than supper had been, Coulson gave them a limited tour of the Triskelion, introduced them to a few more SHIELD agents, and brought them to the briefing room. Thor had forgotten how rudimentary Midgardian technology was at this point. None of the screens could be manipulated by touch and all of the images were two-dimensional. Stark would be changing that soon.

“General Ross has been hunting this man for years based on the claim that he stole military secrets,” said Coulson. Pictures of Banner and Ross occupied the whole of the main screen.

“Did he?” said Loki, his expression shrewd.

“Not in the traditional sense,” said Coulson. “We’re not talking about files or prototype defensive or offensive technology. These ‘military secrets’ are locked in Dr. Banner’s own physiology. He was working with Ross on military-sponsored medical research. Ross wasn’t honest about his goals, though, and if Dr. Banner had been fully informed, he probably wouldn’t have participated, let alone volunteered himself as the first human test subject.”

“What happened to him?” said Loki.

Coulson hesitated. “I’m guessing Norse culture borrowed a lot from you guys.”

The brothers frowned and exchanged a glance. “Yes,” said Thor. “Why?”

“Do you have berserkers?”

“We do,” said Thor. Without seidr, he wasn’t sure how _Midgard_ could truly have berserkers, but he didn’t challenge Coulson’s use of the word. Perhaps the concept had merely come from their garbled myths.

“Good,” said Coulson. “Then what I’m about to show you might not be that unfamiliar.” He touched a button on his device, and the screen began to play somewhat poor quality, silent footage of an average-sized man transforming into a green, muscular monstrosity and wrecking a laboratory.

“By the old man’s beard,” said Loki. He sounded at least slightly impressed. “He survived that transformation?”

“He did,” said Coulson. “And fortunately it wasn’t permanent. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only time it happened. Dr. Banner realized that the military was more interested in duplicating this result for use in warfare than they were in curing him, and he’s been on the run ever since. He’s had a number of other incidents.” Coulson touched another button, which brought up a map scattered with a handful of red dots, each paired with numbers of casualties, wounded, and the amount of property damage done in those locations. “But all our information is that he’s done everything he can to prevent and minimize them. There’s no denying that he’s dangerous, but what Ross wants violates just about every ethical and human rights consideration there is.”

“And what does SHIELD want?” said Thor.

“To get Dr. Banner the help he needs, whether that means treatment or space. Either way, that starts with keeping him away from Ross.”

“I take it previous attempts to contain him have failed,” said Loki.

“Every one,” said Coulson. “And those tended to be where the most collateral damage happened. We’re hoping you guys can do better.”

“So our objectives would be to retrieve him in defiance of this general with minimal impact on people and property,” said Thor.

“And the less Ross is able to learn about SHIELD’s involvement, the better. The agency isn’t on the best of terms with him.”

The briefing continued for the remainder of the day, and even so, Thor could tell that SHIELD was keeping back a lot of information. Explanations of Banner’s situation, while thorough in covering his recent movements and what he was capable of, carefully omitted the details of how he’d gotten into it, with only vague references to the botched experiment. Files on General Ross and his soldiers were even thinner—they were essentially only given their names, ranks, and photographs, so they would be able to recognize them and avoid drawing their attention.

Thor was perfectly confident that he and Loki could accomplish this mission, regardless of what SHIELD chose to keep from them, but he wished his own memories would be more useful. He and Banner had never really discussed events from before they met. For the most part, Banner had seemed content to listen to the rest of the Avengers’ tales rather than contributing his own, and he had done the same as a Revenger. Thor felt another pang at the thought of starting their friendship over again after everything he’d been through with the Banner of his time.

X

The initial plan was that they would be sent out “in the field,” as Coulson put it, the following day, by which point SHIELD expected to have locked down Banner’s location. However, they had just eaten another uninspiring meal in the mess hall when Coulson received a call on the odd communications device he used. Within the first few seconds of it, his spine stiffened and some of the mildness in his expression hardened. When he closed the device a moment later, Loki was watching him expectantly, and Thor said “What news?”

“We just got a bead on Banner’s location, but it’s a bead Ross got over an hour ago.”

“Then speed must be of the essence,” said Loki.

“That it is. We’ll be leaving from the hangar in fifteen minutes.”

Precisely a quarter of an hour later, they were boarding the same aircraft from the previous day. Barton and Sitwell were there again, but the pilot was someone new. The mortals strapped in. Loki and Thor didn’t bother to follow suit.

“What can you tell us?” said Coulson as the pilot maneuvered the craft out of the hangar. He had to speak very loudly over the noise of its propulsion systems.

“We’ve piggybacked onto Ross’s comms,” said Barton. “They just raided the office of Dr. Samuel Sterns, alias Mr. Blue, and carried Banner out on a stretcher. We can’t be sure what happened yet, but Sterns’s lab is full of data and materials they want to requisition. The ranking officer on the scene is Major Kathleen Sparr, with Captain Emil Blonsky, UK Special Ops as her support.”

“I thought Blonsky was in critical condition,” said Coulson sharply.

“Apparently not,” said Sitwell.

“Isn’t Blonsky the one we watched Banner hurl into a tree in the video one of the young scholars recorded?” said Thor.

“Yep.”

“And he’s back at work?”

“Sounds like it.”

Loki glanced at Thor, but Thor only looked bewildered. Clearly he had no knowledge of this Blonsky beyond what Coulson had told them in the briefing room, and no idea why he should prove so much less breakable than the average mortal man. However, that wasn’t the most pressing piece of information at the moment. “If Ross already has Banner, then what can be done?” he asked. “Not that he would be much of an obstacle for us, but I’m assuming you _don’t_ want us incapacitating him and his soldiers.”

“That would be a little less covert than we’d like this to go,” said Coulson. “Right now, the plan is to get close and wait for an opening. But we now have the secondary objective of destroying the contents of that lab.”

“We can’t be sure Ross hasn’t already taken some of it,” said Sitwell. “Until we are, a few things will need to go back to HQ with us. Fitzsimmons can get working on countermeasures to whatever Ross’s people do with it.”

“Right,” said Coulson. “We’ll see what’s there before we decide how much to send back to the lab.”

As Coulson handed out small devices meant to be placed in the ear for the purposes of communicating as a team, Loki had to admire the insidiousness of this Hydra organization. Sitwell had just gained access to dangerous materials but proposed it in such a way that he kept Ross as the villain and SHIELD on the defensive, and Coulson and Barton hadn’t so much as raised an eyebrow. Perhaps he and Thor could ensure that _none_ of the contents of Sterns’s laboratory survived. Working with SHIELD and against Hydra without appearing to do so and while the former remained ignorant of the latter’s existence could prove very entertaining.

He turned to Thor and, using the nameless tongue, asked, “What more can you tell me of Banner before they drop us into this situation?”

“What do you mean? Coulson has told us more than I ever knew about him,” said Thor, frowning.

Loki shot him an impatient look. “He gave us dry data, which is useful for tracking and fighting him but not for winning his loyalty. You were his friend.”

The furrow between Thor’s eyebrows deepened. “Above anything, Banner mislikes being used,” he said slowly. “He appreciates those who respect him for his mind and don’t fear him for something he can’t help. The damage the Hulk has done weighs heavily upon him, so I do not recommend speaking of that in positive terms, no matter how impressive a warrior he may be. He’s one of the most brilliant mortals I’ve ever known, but only as Banner. As the Hulk, his intelligence is akin to that of a beast—barely capable of speech and consumed by rage. We will have to make it extremely plain that we are fighting with him, not against.”

“Even though if he makes an appearance, we will most likely be fighting _him_. How does that work?”

“We focus on protecting everything he might attack rather than directly attacking him. If we can get him somewhere clear of mortals, that can change. Gaining Banner’s trust is how we will eventually gain the Hulk’s.”

Loki nodded. “Alright. But what about the fight? He can’t be much of a challenge for us, can he?”

Thor grimaced.

“You _cannot_ be serious,” said Loki incredulously.

“He has come... _close_ to besting me in battle,” said Thor. “Do not underestimate his strength. Or his speed.”

“Alright,” said Loki. Thor’s insistence that the Midgardians would be useful in upcoming conflicts was beginning to make sense. He was about to ask Thor about the Hulk’s fighting techniques when there was a burst of sound from the speakers that were patched into Ross’s operation, followed by a panicked voice.

“The Hulk is in the street! I repeat, the Hulk is in the street!”

All five of them sat up straighter and glanced at each other in alarm.

“That’s impossible,” said Ross’s voice. “You get ahold of yourself, young man, you get it together!”

“121st Street, heading north on Broadway!” the soldier yelled.

“Damn it, give me eyes down there!”

“Yes sir!”

A video feed opened up on the screen behind the pilot, showing an enormous beige creature with grotesque muscles and a ridged spine wreaking havoc in a crowded street.

“What the Hel is that?” said Thor.

Loki stared at him. He didn’t know?

“Travis, what’s our ETA?” said Coulson, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Another seventeen minutes, sir!” said the pilot.

Coulson swore, and they watched the footage cut off midway through the bloodcurdling scream of the man recording the scene. “Okay, new objective. Whatever that thing is, if it’s still standing when we get there, we’ve got to take it down or get it clear of the city. We’ll have to worry about Banner and the lab later.”

However, it wasn’t long before matters became even more complicated. Moments later, Sitwell held his hand to his ear and looked at Coulson. “We’ve got another situation.”

“What is it?”

“A report from Agent Romanoff.” Thor reacted to this name the same as he had to Coulson, Fury, Barton, and Hill. Another former friend, then. “It looks like Ivan Vanko’s alive. The prototype Hammer Industries drones just went rogue in the middle of the Stark Expo, and so did Rhodes’s suit. Their main target is Iron Man, but there are thousands of civilians in that park. Romanoff’s going after Vanko. She’s requesting backup.”

“And I will provide it,” said Thor, getting to his feet. “Where is this Stark Expo?” Everyone stared at him. “What?” he said. “You wanted to see what my brother and I can do? Watch closely.” He summoned Mjolnir to his hand. “Tell me the way to the Expo, and open the back of this craft.”

“The Expo’s in Queens,” said Barton while Coulson and Sitwell continued to gape. “Northeast of here. I’m guessing it’s pretty hard to miss right now.”

“Thor, wait!” said Loki, grabbing him by the arm. He used the nameless tongue. “You’re going to leave me to face that creature you know nothing about alone?”

“Yes,” he said. “You will be more than a match for it.”

“How do you know that?” said Loki, irritated and feeling the first stirrings of panic. “This didn’t happen the first time!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Thor, grinning and clapping a hand to Loki’s neck. “I have faith in you, Brother.”

“Sap!” said Loki, shoving Thor away. He was still annoyed, but the panic had been replaced by a fiery determination. “Go, then!”

“I’m coming with you,” said Barton, unfastening his restraints as the tail end of the craft opened and wind howled around them.

Coulson looked like he was about to object, but he didn’t get the chance.

“Alright,” said Thor.

“I’m not sure I’d recommend that,” said Loki.

Barton shrugged and snapped a pair of goggles in place over his eyes. “What’s Nat’s channel?”

“Six,” said Sitwell.

Barton tweaked something on his earpiece and Thor’s, handed Thor’s back to him, and set to work rigging up some kind of cable harness so that he didn’t have to rely solely on the strength of his arms to hold onto Thor.

“Give Romanoff my best,” said Coulson, having recovered his mild affect.

“Yes, sir,” said Barton with a grin, and then he and Thor had jumped into open air. Barton gave a whoop and Thor began to spin Mjolnir until it blurred. Within seconds, they had flown out of sight.

In the relative quiet that settled in after the doors closed, Loki found himself the object of three stares, including the pilot’s, who had turned around in his seat.

“So,” said Coulson. “Can you fly too?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to watch The Incredible Hulk one and a half times in preparation for writing this chapter and the next. (It's my least favorite of all the MCU movies, so that wasn't very fun, but this story is fun enough to make up for it.) Figuring out how to weave the endings of that and IM2 together in such a way that Thor and Loki would have to split up was really tricky, but it's super handy that one happens in Harlem and the other in Queens. 
> 
> Originally, I thought Clint was going to parachute after Thor, but logistically that would not work at all, because he'd land miles away from Thor's destination. Luckily, he's crazy enough to do it this way instead. 
> 
> I'm so excited for the next chapter, you guys. It's the reason I've been updating so quickly for the last few.


	8. Deus et Machinae

In the time it took for the Quinjet to reach the location the soldier provided before his death, the conflict seemed to have come to an end. As they flew, they had watched disjointed footage and listened to scattered audio of the battle that had taken place between the large beige creature—who was apparently Captain Blonsky—and the Hulk not long after Thor and Barton’s departure.

Loki’s first glimpse of the scene was of Blonsky chained atop the cracked pavement in what appeared to be the ruins of a building and the Hulk bounding away, pursued by another flying craft.

“I guess we missed the action,” said Coulson.

“Not necessarily,” said Loki, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the circle of men closing in on the trussed up monster.

“What do you have in mind?” said Sitwell.

“Well, whether or not Banner escapes, it appears that Ross has a new specimen within easy grasp.” One Thor had no knowledge of, which meant he was not destined to become a friend of the Avengers.

“You think you can do something about that when they’re surrounding him?” said Coulson.

“Let me down and I’ll show you.”

Coulson signaled to Travis, who flew them low over an adjacent rooftop. Loki didn’t wait for him to land, but slammed the button Barton had used to open the back and leapt out while it was still a good thirty feet up. The density of his own body compared to the materials of mortal structures could do considerable damage after a fall from that height, but a simple spell created a temporary cushion under the balls of his feet, and he landed without a sound. The next spell cloaked him from sight, and he vaulted over the side of the roof and darted down several flights of metal steps to reach the ground. When he dropped the cloak, he emerged looking indistinguishable from Ross’s men, and he infiltrated their ranks without any of them noticing.

 _“Not bad,”_ said Coulson in his earpiece. _“Is it the second prince’s job to be in charge of espionage?”_

Loki couldn’t reply without the soldiers around him hearing, but he smirked. It was, of course, never difficult to impress mortals, but Coulson had observed him at work for all of a minute and already naïvely assumed his skills must give him great prestige on Asgard. He might be surprised to learn that they did rather the opposite, but still, Loki decided he liked the man. His humility and sincerity were rare for one of his profession. Perhaps that was why Fury had chosen him to be attaché.

“I’ve got an armored truck en route,” said Ross. “We’ll load Blonsky up and get him into containment.”

“You think we can keep this thing locked up, sir?” said one of the soldiers.

“No, soldier, I think we can rehabilitate him. And even if we can’t, he’s still a valuable resource.”

“I can’t believe you!” said the dark-haired woman standing near him, her lovely features contorted in anger. Loki recognized her from the briefing materials. The daughter of Ross. “After what he just did to this city and all those innocent people, you _still_ want to do this to more soldiers? What’s it going to take for you to let this insanity go?”

“You think I sanctioned this?” Ross retorted, gesturing at the creature. “Blonsky was reckless. He didn’t follow protocol or wait until there was a safe way to do it. He did this to himself.”

“Blonsky was a cautionary tale! So was Bruce! Why aren’t you listening? You can’t keep doing this. It’ll end the same way every time, but there isn’t always going to be someone there to save you from yourself.”

“Someone escort Dr. Ross to a hospital,” said the general curtly. She glowered at him but allowed herself to be led away.

 _“I’ve heard enough,”_ said Coulson. _“If you can get Blonsky out of the general’s clutches without anyone getting killed, do it.”_

The creature appeared to be effectively restrained by the enormous chains, but he—no, one glance was enough to reveal that Blonsky was most certainly now an _it_ —was not unconscious. Its eyes roved around the men aiming their weapons at it, looking less like it had been beaten than that it was biding its time. So despite its grotesque form, it still had some measure of intelligence. The idea that Ross could rehabilitate it was laughable.

Loki considered for a moment. He couldn’t simply kill it while it lay restrained. That would be too difficult to explain, and he suspected that even Coulson would not approve. But if it were to escape its restraints first…

He performed a combination of spells similar to the day before when Pierce asked everyone to give him and Fury a moment alone: he created a simulacrum to take his place while cloaking himself, and he slipped between the soldiers towards the creature and moved around to get a better look at the chains. Large they were, but they were only made of Midgardian steel. Loki summoned a dagger to his hand, and with a single motion, severed one of the links. The enormous hands immediately shifted under the chain. It could sense that they had weakened. Job done, Loki resumed his place, dispelled the simulacrum, and waited.

X

Barton had been right: with all the drones flying around it, the Stark Expo would have been difficult to miss. There was still a mile or so to go before they reached it, and the drones appeared to be swarming after two airborne figures. “Where shall I let you down?” Thor called over his shoulder.

“High rooftop, central location,” said Barton. “Once I’m in position, feel free to do your thing. Hey, Nat, I’m coming in with that backup for you.”

 _“Great,”_ said Romanoff’s voice. _“Focus on the drones and clearing the park.”_

 _“Who’s backup?”_ said Stark. _“Are we talking more SHIELD agents or is this about that Avenger Initiative thing? Do we get the Hulk? Please tell me we get the Hulk.”_

 _“Tony, focus!”_ said Rhodes.

_“You still locked on?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Drop your socks and grab your Crocs; we’re about to get wet on this ride.”_

_“Wait, wait, wait!”_

Thor watched as Iron Man and War Machine flew narrowly through a large hollow globe structure, against which six of the clumsier pursuing drones exploded. He pushed Mjolnir to go faster. Of his Earth friends, it had been the longest since he’d seen Stark—not that he’d had much time to interact with any of the others during the battle—and that was the first time someone other than him had mentioned Avengers. Perhaps by the end of the night, five of the original six would be back together, with Loki on the right side this time. How much longer would it take before they found Rogers?

“This is a good spot,” said Barton. Thor dropped them down carefully onto the indicated rooftop, and Barton unclipped the harness. Then he took flight again and slammed directly into a drone, knocking it out of the sky. It plowed into the pavement, narrowly missing several civilians. _“Have you got a less messy strategy? I don’t think you’ll get that lucky twice.”_

“Apologies,” said Thor. He spotted Iron Man just as War Machine collided with him in midair and they both fell through a glass dome not far from where he’d set Barton down. None of the drones were following yet, so Thor seized his chance. Perhaps they could draw all of them to that single location, as they had done with the Ultron bots. As he flew, he could hear a jumble of voices arguing over the comms. Something about Stark no longer being close to death, an omelette, and a ‘Hammeroid attack,’ which Thor had to assume was Allspeak having its usual difficulty with Stark’s creative turns of phrase.

Thor landed inside the dome not far from where Iron Man was pulling War Machine to his feet. They both faced him, their masks open. “Well met, Stark, Rhodes. I am Thor Odinson, and I am here on behalf of SHIELD to join your battle.”

“Uh…,” said Rhodes.

“Hey Romanoff, what’s the idea?” said Stark. “We don’t have time for Shakespeare in the Park.”

 _“What are you talking about?”_ said Romanoff.

 _“What’s going on?”_ said a voice Thor thought might be the lady Pepper. _“Who’s there?”_

“Some huge blond dude with a cape and a big-ass hammer,” said Rhodes.

 _“Trust me, he’s someone you want fighting on your team,”_ said Barton.

“Okay, and who are you now?” said Stark.

 _“That’s Agent Barton,”_ said Romanoff.

“Oh, a coworker of yours? He hasn’t already been working at Stark Industries for the last couple of weeks too, has he?”

 _“It might surprise you to know that SHIELD doesn’t entirely revolve around you,”_ said Romanoff.

 _“Uh, guys, this is fun, but you’re about to get dogpiled,”_ said Barton.

“We must make ready,” said Thor.

“Too late,” said Rhodes. The first of the drones landed inside the dome and was quickly joined by the rest. The masks on the suits closed over Stark’s and Rhodes’s faces.

“These are fun odds,” said Stark.

“I know a way to improve them,” said Thor. He raised Mjolnir high in the air, calling lightning to him, and directed it straight at Iron Man and War Machine. However, instead of humming with increased power, both suits toppled motionless onto the ground, while all around them, the drones began firing.

X

About five seconds passed, and then the creature let out a roar and burst free of its chains. All of the actual soldiers yelled and fired their weapons at it. It merely laughed and got slowly to its feet. They all retreated a few paces as their weapons began to make hollow clicking noises, leaving Loki the only one standing within a ten-foot radius of it. This did not escape its attention. It laughed again. “Brave little soldier. You think you stand a chance? The Hulk ran away. There’s no one to save you now.” His eyes flicked to Ross and he bared his teeth.

“The general is right, isn’t he?” said Loki loudly. “You did this to yourself.” He needed to make the creature more interested in attacking him than Ross and his men. Fortunately, that was something Loki was very practiced at.

“Get back, soldier!” said Ross. Loki and the creature both ignored him.

“I did,” said the creature, lumbering closer with a menacing grin. “And it is magnificent.”

“Oh,” said Loki. “I see. Then becoming a sexless golem was _intentional_. To each his own, but I’m not sure gaining bony spikes on one’s spine is a fair trade for the loss of genitalia. Or was there never anything between your legs to begin with?”

With a furious roar, it lunged for Loki, who leapt up, planted his boot on its head, and pushed off at an angle so that he would land facing its back. Before it could react, he planted two Nidavellir daggers to the hilt in its lower spine. They slid in easily enough (unlike the noisy but completely ineffective weapons the mortals had used), and the roar became one of pain, but the creature did not immediately collapse, as anything whose spinal column had just been severed should. Apparently he hadn’t cut deeply enough. It turned around and fixed him with its blood-shot glare.

“Oh, shit,” he said. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid being seized in one large hand, and then he was flying through the air. He went crashing through the stone column several yards away and came to a rolling stop somewhere amid the rubble.

 _“Loki!”_ said Coulson in his ear, sounding horrified. _“Are you alright?”_

“Not to worry,” he grumbled, getting to his feet and dusting off his clothing. The impact had dispelled his disguise. He noted irritably that he had acquired a few scrapes here and there. He had so wanted to still be in pristine condition when he met back up with his brother. “I did more damage to the column than it did to me.” If knives and a beating from the Hulk weren’t enough to finish this monster off, then he was going to need to try a different approach.

The creature was now bearing down on the mortals, so Loki reformed his disguise, seized the largest intact chunk of brick within reach, and lobbed it at its head. It struck its mark, and the creature halted and turned. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Loki did something he was glad Thor was not there to see. “IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?!” he shouted. He waited a few seconds to be sure it was angry enough to pursue him before turning tail and sprinting for the building he had dropped down onto moments before. “Heimdall?” he called as he scaled the metal steps back up to the roof.

 _“Heim-what?”_ said Coulson.

 _“Yes, my prince?”_ the familiar calm, deep voice replied in his head.

“You will have my eternal gratitude if you show me the precise location of the nearest Bifrost site.”

_“What? Who are you talking to?”_

_“That’s quite the enemy you’ve found,”_ said Heimdall. _“Looking for a quick escape?”_

He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the creature was crouching in preparation for a leap that looked like it would carry it all the way up to the roof. It was certainly inconveniently quick on its feet. “Something like that.”

_“The place is called Kingsbridge.”_

“How appropriate.” As he gained the rooftop and began sprinting across it, Loki’s immediate surroundings vanished, his vision taken over by Heimdall to show him the way across the city to a small park. A patch of ground at the center of a clearing glowed gold with the Bifrost’s designs. The effect ended just in time for Loki to leap to the next rooftop, and when he looked over his shoulder, he saw the creature airborne right behind him. Somehow, he had to reach a point some six miles to the northeast before it could catch him, all without letting it kill any mortals. He hoped Thor was having much less fun, whatever he was doing. This was entirely his fault.

X

 _“What the hell was that, Thor?”_ said Barton’s voice in his ear. _“Those are the guys you’re supposed to be helping!”_

“What? But...but I thought I _was_ helping!” Thor spluttered as he slammed his hammer into drone after drone, their primitive projectiles bouncing off his skin and armor like hail. These were far less impressive robotic foes than Ultron had been. “Stark! Rhodes! Are you well?”

 _“_ How _could you_ possibly _think hitting them with lightning would be helpful?”_ said Barton.

“I only thought to increase their power!” said Thor, flinging Mjolnir in a line so that it crashed through several more drones before returning to his hand. “The suits are powered by electrical energy, are they not?”

“Yeah,” Stark grunted. He was still lying facedown on the ground, so his voice was muffled, but he was plainly alive and unhurt. “Doesn’t mean lightning is healthy for ‘em.”

Thor felt completely wrongfooted. He’d supercharged various Iron Man suits numerous times since the skirmish over Loki that had been his and Stark’s first meeting. It had always worked!

“Maybe that was something you should’ve thought about before all these guys who fight using electricity showed up,” Rhodes muttered. He, too, sounded unharmed.

“Yeah, thanks,” said Stark. “It was already on the upgrade list, but I’ve been a little busy synthesizing a new element and not realizing Hammer Time here existed or that Vanko was still alive.”

Thor groaned before headbutting an approaching drone, sending it crashing into the far wall of the enclosure. He could have kicked himself for his folly. He had been so accustomed to the capabilities of Stark’s suits that it had never occurred to him his lightning might damage an earlier model, but he should have known better. Stark in the time Thor had known him had constantly been thinking of upgrades for his technology. It had been foolish to assume that the ability to convert electrical attacks into energy for the suit had always been part of the design.

“You have my deepest apologies,” he grunted while tearing the arms off another drone after hurling Mjolnir at two that had been aiming for Iron Man. “Are the suits damaged beyond repair?”

“Nope, I think it—yeah, booting up now. Welcome back, JARVIS.” Thor looked around and saw that crushed or dismembered drones littered their surroundings. Some still sparked or twitched, but none was intact enough to continue attacking. He helped Iron Man and War Machine to their feet.

“You took all those things down by yourself?” said Rhodes.

“Of course,” said Thor. “I want to help however I can.”

 _“Then you better get back out here,”_ said Barton. _“I could use some eyes in the sky in case any of these drones gets up while we’re clearing out the civilians.”_

 _“Hold up,”_ said Romanoff, _“You got one more drone incoming. This one looks different. The repulsor signature is significantly higher.”_

 _“Yeah, I see it. Not sure that’s a drone,”_ said Barton.

“Get going, Thunderstruck,” said Stark. “We got this.”

Thor nodded and whirled Mjolnir overhead.

X

To the creature’s obvious and very entertaining frustration, it was unable to lay hands on Loki again despite its superior speed. Whenever it drew too close for comfort, Loki simply ducked to the side and left a simulacrum running in his place. When the creature seemed to catch on to this strategy, he complicated it even further by using multiple copies. In this way, Loki was able to lead it mostly along rooftops or through deserted alleys towards Kingsbridge. But with all his tricks, he still only managed to gain about ten seconds on his enemy by the time he reached the spot Heimdall had shown him. He did not waste them. He reached into his dimensional pocket and withdrew six small throwing knives and flung them into the dirt in a circle, marking the edges of the Bifrost site. “Make ready, Heimdall,” he said.

_“Yes, my prince.”_

No sooner had Heimdall replied than the creature came crashing into the park. The few mortals in the vicinity screamed and fled, leaving them with no audience. There was also no sign of SHIELD’s flying craft, which was good. Loki didn’t want it anywhere near the area just now. He stepped forward out of the circle of knives.

“What are you?” said the creature. “Where did you get this power? What else has Ross been hiding from me?” There was as much greed in its eyes as there was anger.

“Oh, this didn’t come from Ross.” Loki grinned and shed his mortal disguise. Then, deciding to do the thing properly, he added his full ceremonial regalia. “I am Loki Odinson, God of Mischief, second prince of Asgard.” He raised his helmeted head high, the grin fading into a scornful sneer. “This power is my birthright. You could travel to the ends of the universe and never gain what I already possessed as an infant.”

The creature snarled, then lunged. It passed right through yet another simulacrum, which vanished, and went sprawling, its head, shoulders, and right arm landing inside the circle Loki had marked. A split second later, the brilliant column of energy came roaring down. The creature’s legs and left arm flailed briefly before going limp and beginning to shrink. The Bifrost ended, leaving its mark burned into the ground and three-quarters of a naked human corpse lying beside it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahaha, I cannot tell you how happy I am to have found another opportunity to make a Deus ex Machina pun title. It's basically my favorite thing to do.
> 
> So this idea for how Thor and Loki would interact with the climaxes of IM2 and Incredible Hulk was basically the reason I decided to write more of this fic instead of leaving it as a one-shot. Initially, I thought there wouldn't be anything fun or interesting for them to do, but oh boy was I wrong. :D I got this mental image of Thor joining in to fight Hammer drones and then accidentally frying Tony and Rhodey's suits when he meant to power them up. Whoops! (Also, if Thor can take on the power of a dying star and only end up a bit sooty, he is definitely bulletproof.)
> 
> It took a while longer to work out what would happen with Loki and Abomination, but I'm super happy with that side of things too. One of the most irritating things about Incredible Hulk for me is that Betty stops Hulk from killing Abomination, and then he just kinda leaves him there, even though he's still awake and there's no one else who stands a chance against him. How did that not end badly? I'm so confused. Also, that's not even how it ended in the original script. In the original script, Hulk straight up breaks Abomination's neck. Which would have been far more sensible, but I suppose it was too dark or whatever. So it was fun to have Loki fix that nonsense, and it was even more fun to have him comment on Abomination's...anatomical inadequacy, because that was such a weird design choice for the filmmakers to make when they could have simply given Blonsky improbably stretchy pants too.
> 
> Next chapter will conclude the crossover stuff for those two movies, and the Brodinsons will probably head home for a super uncomfortable family chat not long after that.


	9. Debriefing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a couple things I want to clarify. When Loki casts a simulacrum, that's just an illusion. It can speak and move, but that's it. A projection, on the other hand, is when he sends part or all of his conscious mind on an errand outside of his physical body. They look the same as simulacra and are also incorporeal, but projections can perform spells and adapt to new situations. Projections require more effort and leave Loki's physical body more vulnerable, but they're super useful. I'm basing the idea of simulacra vs. projections off of canon, because at various times Loki's illusions (and Frigga's, for that matter) appear to be able to do different things. 
> 
> Now, this chapter has a non-linear timeline. We'll be jumping back and forth between Thor and Loki getting debriefed by Fury and Pierce in the Triskelion and more of their adventures in Queens and Harlem. I've tagged each scene with the location, so hopefully it won't be too disorienting. I really liked this setup because it broke up the monotony of the debrief and made it a little more fun.

Triskelion

Pierce tossed onto the table a transparent bag containing two bloody Dwarf-forged daggers and a folder, from which numerous images spilled out. Most were of the Bifrost’s mark beside Blonsky’s corpse, but there were a few that showed the Bifrost itself, lightning striking the Stark Expo, and a laboratory containing nothing but a man whose head appeared to have exploded. “Well I can’t say I’m not impressed, but is this really your idea of building an alliance?”

“We completed our mission,” said Loki placidly. “I trust our work was satisfactory.”

“Satisfactory?” said Fury, who was standing beside Pierce with his arms crossed. “Tony Stark and James Rhodes are lucky to be alive. Dr. Banner is still in the wind, Coulson found Samuel Sterns dead in his empty lab, and the whole internet is buzzing about that pillar of light in Kingsbridge and the monster that chased a guy all across Manhattan.”

“In fairness to my brother,” said Loki, “he was not briefed on the capabilities of these ‘Iron Man’ suits, as our original assignment focused on Dr. Banner. He knew only what Agent Barton was able to tell him en route to the Stark Expo.”

X

Queens

Thor would have preferred remaining in the enclosure to assist Stark and Rhodes with the enemy he’d passed on the way out, but he could understand if they wanted him elsewhere for the moment. His blunder may not have harmed them physically, but their pride was another matter. They did at least seem to appreciate that he had taken apart the drones unassisted, so perhaps he had not lost too much ground with them.

He flew thrice around the park. Without the attacking drones and with the guidance of Barton’s colleagues and local authorities, the evacuation appeared to be going smoothly. However, Thor’s attention was caught by a small boy sitting on the steps of a pavillion. He wore a mask that resembled Stark’s, but had it pulled up away from his face, and he was rubbing tears away from his eyes with his fists. Thor landed and set Mjolnir down before approaching the child. He squatted down in front of him. “Are you alright?”

The lad looked up at him, his face the very picture of misery. “Wh-ho are you?” he asked, hiccupping.

“I am Thor Odinson. And you?”

“Pe-eter. Peter Parker.”

“Why do you weep? Are you hurt?”

“No,” he said. “I he-elped Iron Man fight those robots, but now I don’t know where my aunt and uncle are.”

“Well we must find them so you may tell them of your heroic acts!” said Thor. This earned him a shaky smile from Peter, which revealed at least three adult teeth that were only partially grown in. He reminded Thor of Leif Volstaggson, who was about two hundred—roughly the equivalent of this boy’s age for an Aesir. “Here, climb up on my shoulders. Perhaps you only need more height to be able to see them, and I have plenty to spare.”

“Were you fighting too? Against the robots?”

“I was.”

“Then you’re on Iron Man’s side?”

“I am.”

“Okay,” said Peter. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but if you fight on Iron Man’s side, then I think I can trust you.”

“You honor me, young warrior. I will not betray your trust.”

Peter giggled. Thor turned around and crouched down, and the boy clambered up his cape and sat on his shoulders.

They walked thus for a few minutes, Peter chattering all the time about how cool Iron Man was and how he’d known he would stop the evil robots from the start. Evidently this had been some kind of festival celebrating science and technology before all the chaos erupted, and Peter had begged his aunt and uncle for weeks to bring him until they finally agreed. Suddenly, there was a cry of “Peter!” from behind them.

Thor turned around, and Peter exclaimed in delight. “Aunt May! Uncle Ben!” A man and woman were running towards them. They looked about Stark’s age. The man’s wavy brown hair was graying at the temples and he wore a pair of spectacles, and the woman had tied her hair in a knot at the top of her head. Both appeared unharmed. Thor bent down, and Peter leaped directly from his shoulders into their arms.

“Oh thank God!” said the woman between showering her nephew in kisses.

“We were so worried!” said the man, hugging them both. He looked up at Thor, at which point his mouth fell open.

“Aunt May, Uncle Ben, this is Mr. Odinson. He was fighting the robots with Iron Man, and then he helped me find you.”

“We can’t thank you enough,” said May. “We were getting hotdogs when those things attacked, and when I turned around, Peter was gone.” She looked at her nephew. “The next time there’s danger, you stay close, okay?”

“Okay, Aunt May,” he said, head drooping.

“Come on, we should’ve been out of here ten minutes ago,” said Ben.

“Yes, and I should report back to Barton,” said Thor. “Perhaps we will meet again one day.” He stepped back a few paces, summoned Mjolnir to his hand, and suppressed a grin at their astonished faces as he spun it overhead and took to the air. No sooner had he done so than there was an explosion from the dome where he’d left Stark and Rhodes. He spun around in time to see glass and metal flying.

He hastily pressed his earpiece. “Stark! What happened?”

 _“Vanko’s down,”_ said Stark.

However, another voice in the background gave a feeble laugh and said, _“You lose.”_ Suddenly, the chest pieces of the wrecked drones on the ground began flashing red and beeping.

 _“All these drones are rigged to blow,”_ said Rhodes. _“We gotta get out of here, man.”_

 _“This might be a good time for some of that lightning,”_ said Barton.

“Agreed,” said Thor. From here, he could see three of the drones. He might not have been able to do this the first time around, but now it was easy. As the beeps and flashes increased in frequency, full-strength bolts of lightning struck, leaving blackened, inert husks behind. He moved on to find another pair of them and did the same. It was as far as he could get before the rest exploded, but only a few remained outside the dome. The worst damage was to the dome itself, which had already been empty.

“I was only able to deactivate five before they could explode,” said Thor.

 _“You did good,”_ said Barton. _“From what I can see, no one was near the others. Ready to head back?”_

“I would speak with Stark first.”

_“Uh, now might not be the best time for that.”_

Thor opened his mouth to ask why, but he had his answer as soon as he saw Stark. He was standing in most of his suit on a rooftop not far from the one Barton was positioned on, and he and the lady Pepper were enjoying a tender embrace. Thor let out a chuckle that turned to a full laugh when he spotted Rhodes standing nearby on the same roof, looking nonplussed. To give them a moment, he did one more flyover of the park, which was now empty of civilians, before circling back to Stark’s roof.

“You don’t have to do that. I heard the whole thing,” Rhodes was saying.

“You should get lost,” said Stark.

“I was here first!” said Rhodes. “Get a roof!”

Thor touched down a bit to the side of them, trying to be unobtrusive, but he immediately drew all three pairs of eyes onto himself. He grinned and gave a sheepish wave. “Hello. We did not have the opportunity to properly meet in the midst of the battle.”

“Yeah,” said Stark. He stared at Thor. “You two definitely see him?”

“Yep,” said Rhodes.

“Uh-huh,” said Pepper, whose arms were still around Stark’s shoulders.

“So what’s your deal?” said Stark. “Get struck by lightning at a Renaissance festival, ended up with superpowers?”

Thor laughed again. “No, and I think you will find the truth far stranger. I am Thor, son of Odin, Crown Prince of Asgard and God of Thunder, and I have come to Earth with my brother Loki to make allies of those who protect this world.”

“Hammer. Lightning. Ridiculous strength and durability. Flight,” said Stark. “Checks out.”

“Wait, you’re an alien?” said Rhodes. “The Norse Gods are real, and they’re aliens.”

“What?” said Pepper. “Aliens are real now too?” She looked like she’d had just about all she could take in the last few days.

“Indeed, my good lady,” said Thor, offering her a courteous bow. “We always have been.”

She let out a hysterical-sounding laugh and leaned against Stark.

“I thought aliens were supposed to be little and green,” said Rhodes.

“There are certainly many species with green skin,” said Thor. “The Cotati, the A’askavarii, the Zehoberei, the Makulans, the Skrulls—” He broke off when he noticed how wide Pepper’s and Rhodes’s eyes had gone. “However, we Aesir have the same range of skin and hair colors as the people of Earth.”

“Represent,” said Rhodes.

“Huh,” said Stark. “How come you speak English but it’s all formal and archaic? Did you miss the last few patches for your galactic translator?”

“I am not speaking English. I am using Allspeak, which is why I seem to you to be speaking your own tongue. I have been told by speakers of many languages across different worlds that the result sounds archaic. My brother understands the mechanics better. He could perhaps explain why that is.”

There was a long pause, one of the more uncomfortable ones Thor had experienced on Earth—that didn’t involve Darcy, anyway—and then Stark seemed to come to an abrupt decision. “Can’t say I don’t want to learn more about friendly space Vikings,” he said. “How about you drop by sometime. I’ve been thinking about schematics for that auto-charge upgrade. Should be able to whip it up in a couple days. You could help me give it a test run.”

“Yeah, and you totally came up with that _before_ tonight,” Rhodes muttered.

“Hey, you stole my suit,” said Stark. “You don’t get to complain.”

“About that. My car got taken out in the explosion, so I’m gonna have to hang onto the suit for a minute, okay?”

X

Triskelion

“Stark and Rhodes are both unharmed,” said Thor, “and Stark has even invited us to visit his home.”

“Romanoff’s final report does indicate that the casualties would’ve been higher without your help,” Fury admitted.

“But your actual assignment—,” began Pierce, but Loki interrupted.  

“—Has been completed,” he said. “Our objectives were to keep Dr. Banner and the contents of the laboratory out of General Ross’s hands, and, as a last-minute addition for which we were given no preparation, to prevent the transformed Captain Blonsky from killing any more civilians. All of this, we have done.”

“You needn’t be so modest, Brother,” said Thor, clapping Loki on the back. “Your success this night was far greater than mine.”

“The walls of that lab are coated in Sterns’s brains!” said Pierce.

“Not by my hand,” said Loki. “I noticed a recording device in the laboratory, similar to the ones here. Have you examined it?”

X

Harlem

_“Clever plan, my prince.”_

“I thought so,” said Loki.

_“I would appreciate a warning the next time you intend to splatter my Observatory with blood and severed body parts.”_

“Duly noted.” He felt very smug. It wasn’t merely that he had succeeded in leading the monstrous Blonsky to his death; the chase itself had also provided an excellent distraction. He’d only truly run the first mile of it, leaving a projection and simulacra to do the rest while he cloaked his real body and located the laboratory of Samuel Sterns. Major Sparr would soon regain consciousness in a completely empty facility, and neither Hydra nor Ross would have an opportunity to lay hands on any of these materials, as they would all remain safely tucked away in Loki’s dimensional pocket until he could find time to dispose of them.

“Now,” he said, “if you could direct me to Dr. Banner?”

_“You haven’t quite finished where you are.”_

This cryptic remark and a quiet sound behind him were all the warning he got. His hand shot out and closed around a wrist, and there was a yelp of surprise. Loki turned and saw that his would-be attacker was a short man who would have been thoroughly unremarkable had it not been for his grotesquely distended skull. He was holding some kind of needle in the hand Loki had caught, and had clearly been trying to stab it into his neck. “Drop it or I crush the wrist,” he said.

The fingers immediately opened and the needle clattered to the floor.

“Dr. Sterns, I presume,” said Loki. “If you wanted me to return your materials, you chose the wrong approach.”

Sterns’s eyes were suddenly alight with a maniacal gleam. “You—you’re not human,” he said. Loki had the distinct impression that he was imagining cutting him open to see what his non-human innards were like. If he were not so utterly unthreatening, Loki might have found that unsettling. As it was, he merely felt disdain. And perhaps revulsion.

“Indeed not. But while I have never been, it would appear that you have only recently abandoned the designation.” The man’s head visibly pulsated, and he cringed and pressed his hands to it. “What _have_ you done to yourself?”

“I’ve expanded my mind,” said Sterns, recovering from whatever pain he’d just experienced and cackling at his own dreadful wit. “I understand so much more than I did. I was like a child before.”

Loki watched him, his expression flat. A vein over Sterns’s enlarged forehead was throbbing in a rather diseased fashion. “It doesn’t look terribly stable.”

“This was the result of accidental contamination. I need—” He winced again. “—my materials to finish it. I know how to make it work now.”

“How unfortunate,” said Loki, folding his arms. “Because I will certainly not be giving any of those back to the one who tried to attack me and turned Blonsky into what he became.”

“Blonsky.” Sterns’s face split in a grin. “He’s magnificent, isn’t he?”

“How would you define magnificent? A rampaging beast who slaughters any innocents in its path?”

“They don’t matter,” said Sterns. “He’s above them now, just like we are. Just like Dr. Banner could be if he would just accept—” He broke off with a groan and fell to his knees, the pain in his head plainly becoming too much to bear.

“Superiority without compassion begets tyranny,” said Loki. It was something Odin had told his sons many times in their youth. “And in any case, Blonsky is dead.”

“What? How?” he panted. “What...did you do?”

“I used a carefully controlled spatial rift to cut him in two.” He walked towards the exit, unconcerned by the moans of pain and dismay behind him. “Enjoy the fruits of your hubris, Dr. Sterns. Perhaps, in your final moments, your enhanced intellect will enable you to discern precisely how you brought this upon yourself.”

X

Triskelion

“How can we trust what that footage shows when we now know you can make yourself invisible and send copies of yourself anywhere you want?” said Pierce.

“Examine the remains,” said Loki. “They will tell the same tale I have. If I am guilty of anything, it is allowing the man’s own actions to take their course. I chose not to restore his equipment to him. After cleaning up the consequences of his other experiment, I did not trust him to use it merely to save his own life.”

“Alright, but what about Banner?” said Fury. “According to Barton, there wasn’t a hint of green on him in the end, but you let him slip through your fingers.”

Thor and Loki glanced at each other, silently debating what they should say. Predictably, it was Thor who ultimately decided on the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much the only reason to include the stuff with Peter, Ben, and May was that it was going to be adorable. Thankfully, this is fanfiction, and I don't have to justify keeping pointless adorableness to an editor. I'm putting Peter at something like nine years old at this point. 
> 
> I am really not a fan of Sam Sterns and his super brain, so I decided I was going to have it blow up on its own just to simplify matters. The only story involving a big-brained super-genius that I have ever enjoyed was that one episode of Jimmy Neutron in which it happens to Sheen. (Yes, this includes Megamind. That one kinda fell flat for me. Not sure why.) It's the stuff of weird, hokey '60s sci-fi. Not my thing.
> 
> Next up, how things went with Bruce. (How did I think this entire mission was going to fit into a single chapter? It's turned into three. So far.)


	10. Requests and Rematches

Loki quickly departed the bare laboratory and stepped out into the street, not particularly keen to be present for the moment when Sterns met his fate. By his guess, it would be rather messy. He didn’t bother to disguise himself; all the mortals in the vicinity were too preoccupied with the wreckage the creature had left in its wake to notice anything as inconsequential as unusual clothing.

 _“Loki?”_ said Coulson. _“Did we lose you?”_

“I’ve been to Dr. Sterns’s laboratory,” said Loki. “Do try to keep up.”

_“We found what’s left of Blonsky. Effective, yet gross. Are you leaving the lab now? We still need to get his materials before Ross has a chance to requisition them.”_

“Already taken care of,” said Loki. Some of the people he passed were in military garb, but they paid him no more mind than the civilians.

 _“What do you mean, ‘taken care of’?”_ said Coulson, the slightest hint of apprehension in his tone. Loki wondered what it would take to actually crack the man’s mild façade.

“There is nothing left for Ross to use. I have emptied the lab.”

_“Emptied it how? It’s only been fifteen minutes. What, did you throw everything in a bag of holding?”_

“Bag of—no, it’s in a dimensional pocket,” said Loki, puzzled by the term.

 _“Oh,”_ said Coulson. _“Sounds handy. Can you fit anything in there?”_

“The limits are set by how much energy one is willing to invest. Something I underestimated once as a boy.”

_“What happened?”_

“My mother found me unconscious and bleeding from the nose and ears beneath half the contents of the palace larder, which put paid to Thor’s and my plans to sneak off on a grand adventure that week.”

_“I’m guessing you two were kind of a handful.”_

“She certainly didn’t earn the title Goddess of Motherhood for nothing.”

_“Well, ready to rendez-vous?”_

“I still have an objective to complete. And you might want to drop by the lab in the meantime.”

_“Why’s that? I thought it was empty.”_

“Sterns is there. Blonsky isn’t the only one he experimented on, though he did say this was an accident.”

 _“Wait, what?”_ said Coulson, but Loki had removed his earpiece and dropped it into the dimensional pocket too.

“Heimdall?”

 _“Banner is traveling northwest,”_ said the Gatekeeper promptly. _“You won’t be able to catch him on foot.”_

“I never expected to. Have Thor meet me there, if he can.” With that, still in the middle of the street, Loki performed a spell that would have given any other mage from Asgard, Vanaheim, or even Alfheim great difficulty, but which he had been able to do as easily as breathing for as long as he could remember: he shifted his form, trading it for that of an Asgardian horned owl, and flew up over the buildings and into the open air.

X

Thor flew back to the rooftop where he’d left Barton, who grinned when he saw him. “That was a little shaky at first, but I think you stuck the landing okay.”

“Then you know it was not my intent to harm Stark or Rhodes?”

“Nah, you tore those drones apart like they were tin foil. I’m pretty sure you could kick all of our asses without breaking a sweat if you wanted to, but you didn’t.”

“Nor will I,” said Thor. “I would have all of you for friends, not merely allies.”

“I think I actually believe that,” said Barton.

Thor’s mouth fell open, then lifted in a delighted smile. “You do me a great honor, Agent Barton!” He moved forward and pulled Barton into a hug before the man could do more than grunt in protest.

“Yeah, yeah, put me down.”

Thor let go of him and stepped back. As he did, Heimdall’s voice sounded in his mind. _“My prince, your brother requests that I relay a message to you.”_

“Tell me the message,” said Thor. Barton frowned at him.

_“He has defeated Blonsky and emptied the laboratory of Samuel Sterns, and he is now in pursuit of Dr. Banner.”_

“I will help him,” said Thor. “Where is Banner?”

“Did your earpiece switch chan—holy shit,” said Barton. Thor barely noticed, for Heimdall had taken over his sight and was showing him the way to Banner. He was beyond the city and barreling through the forest to the northwest, still in Hulk form, with a helicopter hot on his heels. The vision vanished and his present surroundings reappeared, including a very alarmed-looking Barton.

“What was that?”

“My brother is closing in on the Hulk. I must go to him.”

Barton tapped his earpiece. “Nat, you got this? Thor and I have to get back to the other situation.”

X

Though the Hulk had covered at least another mile of forest by the time Thor flew with Barton to the place Heimdall had shown him, it was not difficult to track him farther, as he was leaving a wide trail of broken branches and overturned earth that was clearly visible from the air.

They weren’t near enough to see exactly what happened, but the helicopter must have become too vexing for Hulk to ignore, for the craft in the air ahead of them suddenly listed dramatically to the left. A second later, something large struck it, and it began spinning out of control and losing altitude. A few seconds later they saw that it no longer had a tail, and the Hulk was on the ground, bellowing and brandishing an uprooted tree as though ready to hurl it at anything else that came after him.

Thor landed not far from the helicopter. “Help them!” he told Barton, jerking his harness free. The Hulk was stomping closer to the downed craft, and though Thor had hoped to make a friendlier first impression, there was nothing for it if those humans were to survive. Hoping to draw Hulk to the side, he threw Mjolnir so that it would clip him on the shoulder. It hit its mark, and Hulk’s gaze moved from the helicopter to Thor. He bared his teeth in a dully puzzled sort of grimace, but then Mjolnir struck him again on its way back to Thor’s hand. He roared and threw the tree in his hands. Thor didn’t move quickly enough, and the trunk caught him right in his middle, sending him tumbling over and over around it for about a hundred feet.

He tossed the tree aside and bounded to his feet, a grin on his face. He probably shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he was, but he couldn’t help it. Now that he had Hulk’s attention, he wouldn’t be using Mjolnir, which surely made him look too much like a threat. There was no lullaby to calm Hulk at this point in time, but maybe an open offer of peace would still have some effect. And if not, perhaps this was an opportunity to prove that he would’ve won that tournament battle if it hadn’t been for the stupid obedience disk.

“Hulk!” he called. “I’m not here to hurt you! I only want to help you get away from Ross!”

The chance of words having any impact on Hulk was always a long shot, but the men in the helicopter chose that moment to prove they had survived by firing a round of bullets at him. He roared again and started towards them.

“No, you fools!” Thor yelled. “Barton, make them stop!” He ran as hard as he could. Hulk was mere yards from Barton and four battered, terrified soldiers clutching their weapons when Thor tackled him from the side.

X

Loki alighted on a large tree branch on the perimeter of the brand new forest clearing his brother and the green beast had created. He shifted back into his usual form and regarded the brawl with raised eyebrows. “Well I’m not getting in the middle of _that_ ,” he muttered. After a few moments, he noticed that Thor wasn’t using Mjolnir. It sat waiting at the center of the field while Thor mainly relied on his fists, and it swiftly became apparent that he did _not_ have the upper hand without his hammer.

Resigned, Loki hopped down from the tree. Whether Thor was trying to prove that he could win against his former friend with strength alone or he was simply reluctant to harm him, this had gone on long enough.

X

Once more, Thor found himself on the ground, Hulk’s fists raining down on his head and torso. He was done holding back. Through the pain, he attempted to summon his lightning as he had done on Sakaar and again in the final battle against Hela. It wouldn’t come. He could feel it pulsing and crackling just beyond his reach, but try as he might, he could not touch it, and blow after blow continued to fall. The list of things he needed to discuss with Father was growing, but right now, there was nothing for it. He would have to summon Mjolnir.

“STOP!” cried a voice from somewhere off to the side, and Hulk actually stopped. He turned to face the voice. Thor rolled to the side and spat out some blood before looking up. A fair woman with dark hair and almost elfin features stood nearby—the woman Coulson had described in the briefing. Betty Ross.

Thor couldn’t help feeling a little petulant. “I was about to win, you know.”

“I’m sure you were,” Betty muttered, not taking her eyes off Hulk, who snarled and glared at Thor again. “Bruce, please! He’s not like the men who came after you. He’s a friend.”

Hulk glowered down at Thor, who managed a smile around his stinging split lip and held up his hands. Hulk turned to Betty. She walked closer and reached up to touch his face. “It’s okay,” she said. “They won’t chase you anymore.” She wrapped her arms around his enormous neck as best she could. To Thor’s amazement, Hulk began to shrink, the green receding from his skin.

X

When Bruce came to himself, his nose was full of the smell of Betty’s shampoo, and his arms were full of Betty. He stared over her shoulder in bewilderment at the wreckage of a forest around them. How did they get out of the city? Where were the general and his men?

“I’m sorry,” said Betty, gently disengaging from the embrace.

“For what?” said Bruce, hastily grabbing the waistband of his ruined pants so they wouldn’t fall to the ground.

She walked over to an enormous, long-haired blond man in leather armor and a cape, and pulled him easily to his feet with one hand. He brushed bits of grass and dirt off himself and offered Bruce a wincing, slightly bloody grin. Before Bruce could ask Betty who the hell this guy was, a green-gold shimmer passed over her. The next second, a 6’2” man with nearly the same coloring as Betty stood in her place, wearing...he didn’t even know how to describe it, except that it looked simultaneously more expensive and more anachronistic than any medieval costume he’d ever seen. “Forgive my deception,” said the man, “but it didn’t look like your fight with my brother was going to end anytime soon, and your alter-ego seems to respond well to Dr. Ross.”

“Where’s Betty?” said Bruce. “What did you do with her?”

“Nothing at all, I assure you,” said the man. “Her father had her escorted to a hospital because he didn’t want to listen to the excellent argument she was making. She’s perfectly safe.”

“Oh.” Much of his renewed feelings of hostility left him, replaced by confusion. “Then...how did you change your appearance and voice like that?”

“It was hardly as dramatic a change as yours,” said the man.

Annoyance joined confusion, but he was distracted when the blond man stuck his right hand out to the side and a ridiculously huge hammer flew into it, which he casually dropped onto a hook on his belt. “Who are you guys?”

“Thor and Loki Odinson,” said the blond man, wiping his mouth. “It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Banner.”

Bruce stared around at all the splintered and uprooted trees in every direction. “Am I drugged in a lab somewhere and hallucinating? I thought I was fighting one of Ross’s guys in the city.”

“You were,” said Loki. “But you left him alive and conscious in the heart of the city, bound only by chains. Hardly a permanent solution. Is it common practice among Earth warriors to leave extremely dangerous and unreasonable enemies alive even when you lack suitable containment?”

“Uh...it’s not exactly a situation most people encounter,” said Bruce. “Or want on their conscience.”

“Terribly sloppy. You’ll be happy to know I rectified the situation.”

“I told you you’d be more than a match for that beast,” said Thor, grinning and punching Loki on the shoulder.

“Yes, whereas you ended up taking quite the beating.”

“I would’ve won!”

“Clearly debatable. And how about the Stark Expo?”

Thor looked sheepish. “I might’ve...nearly electrocuted Stark and Rhodes, but I did destroy many robots and helped a young boy find his family.”

“Well done,” said Loki sarcastically.

Something Loki had said finally penetrated Bruce’s confusion. “Wait a second, did you say ‘Earth warriors’? What does that make you?”

“We are not of this world,” said Thor. “We are the princes of Asgard. We’ve come to Earth to forge an alliance.”

“So I’m supposed to believe that two random guys with British accents and weird medieval fantasy outfits are really some kind of...of alien princes? Was the transformation thing some kind of trick?”

“There are many who say that everything I do is a trick,” said Loki. “Why do you think I am known as the God of Mischief? But surely this field of battle is proof enough of Thor’s identity.”

“Right,” said Bruce, adjusting his grip on his waistband. “Well, I’m kind of a fugitive from the military, so if you’ll excuse me…”

“To go where?” said Loki.

Banner stopped looking for the easiest path out of the destroyed forest and stared at him.

“The good people at SHIELD have told us about you, Robert Bruce Banner. You had purpose, respect, position. The love of a good woman. And all of that ended after one experiment gone wrong. All you have left is this power you do not want. You run from it as much as from those who covet it.”

As he spoke, Bruce’s irritation gradually gave way to a weary kind of tension. “What do you want?” he said.

“We want to help you,” said Thor.

“Help me?” Bruce repeated.

“We cannot restore what you have lost, nor can we free you from the curse your science placed upon you,” said Loki. “However, in a few days, Thor and I will return to Asgard. If you come with us, you will be far beyond the reach of your pursuers.”

Thor looked at Loki in surprise. “You want to take him home with us?”

“Why not? Coulson said SHIELD wanted to give Banner space. I see no reason why we shouldn’t take that literally.”

Bruce couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. “Okay, this is all too crazy to be a lie any sane person would tell, so let’s pretend for a second I believe you guys. My own government has been chasing me for years. They want to do... _this_ ,” he gestured at himself, “to other people. Weaponize it. I’m betting they still do, even after what happened in the city.”

“You know Ross well,” said Loki. “But he may find he lacks the materials to achieve that ambition after tonight.”

“All the more reason for you to go where he cannot follow,” said Thor.

“You’re working with SHIELD? Why should I believe that a secret intelligence agency is trying to protect me from the military? Why should I believe that a couple of _aliens_ are trying to protect me from the military?”

“Because, my dear doctor,” said Loki, “Asgard already has more than enough berserker warriors. Our science and technology are aeons ahead of yours. There is nothing new you can show us. I cannot vouch for SHIELD, but you would not have to answer to them on Asgard either.”

“As a royal guest,” said Thor, “you would be as free to roam as any citizen, you would have access to the kind of knowledge your world’s scholars will take millennia to amass, and you will have the peace of knowing that your surroundings are durable enough to withstand an unexpected rampage.”

“What is more,” said Loki. “You would have full control over your Mr. Blue’s illicit equipment and materials.” He flicked his hand, and something appeared in it, which he tossed to Bruce, who managed to catch it despite his surprise. It was one of the bags of blood from Sterns’s lab. “It will be yours to use or destroy as you see fit.” He waved his hand again and the blood bag vanished in a flash of greenish-gold light.

Bruce stared at the two of them. He was still struggling to believe that this was real, despite the evidence. If there had just been two alien princes who wanted to use him like everyone else did, that would have been easy enough to swallow, but the possibility of freedom and no longer being a danger to everyone around him? His situation had been enough to make him eat a bullet. Or try to. His throat felt tight and his chest ached. Did he dare let himself hope?

“Wouldn’t you like to be able to stop running,” said Loki, “at least for a while?”

Bruce didn’t answer. He was torn. It would be completely insane to trust them, but he had never wanted anything as badly as what they offered.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” said Thor. “We will find you when we are ready to return home, and you can give us your answer then.”

“Perhaps I could make it a bit easier for you to evade the general’s clutches in the meantime?” said Loki.

“What do you mean?” said Bruce warily.

“Nothing too dramatic,” said Loki. “You’d still look like a mortal man, and it wouldn’t be permanent.”

X

Triskelion

“I still fail to see the problem,” said Loki, once Thor finished his account. “Agent Coulson told us that SHIELD wanted to keep Banner and the materials and research of Samuel Sterns out of General Ross’s hands. All of this, we have done. If you had different plans, how were we to know?” He met Alexander Pierce’s gaze with a perfectly bland expression. He could almost hear the man’s blood pressure rising.

“You can’t deny that offering to take Dr. Banner and all that research off-world is a pretty damn unorthodox way of fulfilling your objective,” said Fury.

“And _you_ can’t deny that it is an effective one,” Loki retorted.

Fury glared at him for a second or two, then let out a chuckle.

“Nick,” said Pierce. His tone carried restraint and warning.

“What, Pierce? We wanted them to prove they were our allies, not our tools. I’d say that’s exactly what they did. From where I’m sitting, they’re already more reliable than Stark, and Coulson and Barton both vouched for them. If Banner wants to go to Asgard, that’s his choice, and I like that idea much better than having to keep doing damage control whenever Ross gets too close to him.”

“How is Banner supposed to protect Earth against its enemies if he isn’t on it?” said Pierce.

“How can any of us ask for Banner’s aid in the coming battles if we have done nothing for him?” Thor shot back. “My brother and I have offered him a place to learn control without fear of pursuit or of doing further harm. He can return whenever he likes, and he will be free to bring with him any knowledge he gains from Asgard when he does.”

This seemed to give Pierce pause—though Loki suspected it was more because he couldn’t think of an argument against it than that he actually agreed. “And what about Sitwell’s report?” he said.

“What about it?” said Fury. “It didn’t contradict anything in Coulson’s or Barton’s.”

“No,” said Pierce, “but he had concerns about their habit of speaking a language we can’t understand when they talk to each other.”

It was a weak argument, and even Pierce seemed aware of it. Of course, if he knew that Thor and Loki hadn’t merely been speaking their native tongue, but were deliberately communicating in a way no one else would understand so that they could discuss how to handle him and the other Hydra operatives, he might have been more confident in his objection.

“I’d like to move forward with this,” said Fury.

Pierce kept his reaction down to a grimace as he got to his feet. “Fine. It looks like I need to brief the World Council on our new alliance.” He shot Thor and Loki a tight smile and left the room.

“It will be our honor to fight alongside the warriors of Earth, Director Fury,” said Thor. “We will be sure to inform you when we know more about the movements of the Dokkalfar army or the Mad Titan.”

“Yeah, about that,” said Fury. “Now that I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you guys can do, I’d like to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.”

Loki fully expected that Thor would be so excited to hear Fury utter those words that he would have to throw up an illusion to keep him from ruining all semblance of pretense, but he was wrong. “Before you do,” said Thor, who looked as serious as Loki had ever seen him, “I must request something of you that you will not like, but please trust that that it is only a request, not a threat, and I make it in the hope of sparing the Earth from great destruction and suffering in the coming years.”

“What’s that?” said Fury, arching an eyebrow.

“Our father battled the Mad Titan long before we were born,” said Thor, and Loki suddenly knew where Thor was going with this. He was not at all sure it was wise, but there was nothing he could do about that now. “It was a long, bloody war, and it ended with Thanos in retreat. The reason they fought was that Thanos coveted one of Asgard’s treasures. The Tesseract. One of the six Infinity Stones he seeks.”

“Those things you said he would use to destroy half the universe?” said Fury.

“Yes,” said Thor. “After the war, Father hid the Tesseract away on Earth, among primitive mortals who could not use it, where Thanos would never think to seek it. I fear it is no longer safe here, but more importantly, Earth is not safe as long as it remains. It has been disturbed by humans, and it will call Thanos to it like a beacon. He has been marshalling his forces and planning for another attempt on it since his defeat at Odin’s hands, and soon he will come for it with his armies.”

“So where does this big request of yours come in?” said Fury.

“Allow us to return the Tesseract to Asgard. With it gone, Thanos will have no reason to attack Earth, and our defenses will be strong enough to deter him until we can find a safer hiding place for it.”

Loki kept his eyes on Fury with difficulty. Thor was _lying_. Loki was astonished—not least because he was actually doing a passably good job of it. But where was the deception? It was true that Thanos would be less interested in a world that held no Infinity Stone...unless the Tesseract wasn’t the only one on Midgard?

Fury looked thoughtful. “I could pretend I don’t know what or where this Tesseract of yours is, but I think that would be a waste of all of our time. Shiny blue cube, about yea big?” He held his hands a few inches apart.

Thor nodded.

“You know, a very dangerous man got a hold of that thing a few decades ago and wreaked a lot of havoc with it,” said Fury. “Why wasn’t Asgard interested in getting it back then?”

“I assume you’re referring to Johann Schmidt,” said Loki. “He came up in a few of our council meetings. Asgard was prepared to act, but our aid proved to be unnecessary after Schmidt was thwarted by some of your own soldiers.”

“I’m sure you and your people have far purer intentions than he did,” said Thor, “but that is immaterial. If you are using it, Thanos can find it.”

Fury watched them silently for a long moment. Then he sighed. “Even if you’re telling the truth, I can’t just hand something like that over to a couple of guys who showed up two days ago.”

“We are happy to give you as much time to consider as you require,” said Loki. “But bear in mind that Thanos will not be so generous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so Thor vs. Hulk was pretty inconclusive, but that's only because Thor was going easy on him. He doesn't want to hurt him. If he didn't hold back, he'd win, with or without Mjolnir and lightning. 
> 
> I know Thor said in TDW, "Of the two of us, which one can actually fly," but if Loki can turn into a snake and turn Thor into a frog, then there's no reason he can't also turn into something with wings.
> 
> In case you were wondering, Loki made Bruce (who will always be Mark Ruffalo in my fics) look like Edward Norton, because why not. And I will never apologize for describing Betty as having "elfin" features. XD
> 
> Oh hey, I think Thor and Loki might finally be done introducing themselves to characters Thor already knows! I was getting really tired of writing the same conversation over and over, but none of them felt skippable.
> 
> Up next, party at Tony's, and everyone's invited!


	11. Hylopetes winstony

When Stark had first tossed out his offhand invitation, Thor had imagined there would be revelry like at Avengers Tower before Ultron’s initial attack, with many future Avengers and prominent SHIELD agents present. However, with Barton and Romanoff on assignment, Banner on the run, and Rogers under the ice, it was only Thor, Loki, and Coulson who set out for Stark’s clifftop mansion the day after the debriefing, and they found the place mostly silent.

Thor had never been to his friend’s home in the original timeline, as it had already been destroyed by the time he was spending more than a few days at a stretch on Midgard. As strange as mortal dwellings usually were, this round, precariously perched cement structure was in a class all of its own—which meant that it suited Stark rather well.

As they crossed the odd front garden, beams of blue light flashed briefly over their faces and they were greeted by the pleasant voice of Stark’s artificial manservant. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am JARVIS, Mr. Stark’s user interface computer system. Please, come in. Mr. Stark is just putting the finishing touches on the latest series of upgrades.”

The glass door opened on its own and they walked inside. Thor assumed that this must normally be quite a nice place for Stark to live, but at the moment it was almost more rubble than house. A robot was wheeling around the area overlooking the sea, picking up pieces of broken wall and floor and placing them in a large container. It froze upon their approach, the fingers of its single appendage opening and closing in their direction. From this angle, Thor could read the word “dunce” on the conical hat it wore. He guffawed, and the robot’s arm wilted a bit and it buzzed in a despondent sort of way.

“Was this house recently attacked?” said Loki.

“Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes had a minor disagreement after Mr. Stark’s birthday festivities,” said JARVIS. “Also, Mr. Stark preferred to construct his own particle accelerator on the premises rather than seeking more suitable facilities.”

“Maybe that was because SHIELD put him on house-arrest,” said Coulson.

“Considering that he broke your perimeter more than once before completing his work, I would not be so certain,” said JARVIS.

Coulson seemed mildly annoyed by this, but didn’t comment. Loki might have, except that a pair of voices were now drifting towards them from deeper in the house.

“—Still can’t believe you let _Justin Hammer_ put his dainty, callus-free charlatan hands on my suit.”

“You could’ve just told me you wanted me to have it instead of pushing me and everyone else away.”

“That’s true. Not my best moment. I’ll try to be less immature the next time I’m dying. But come on, did you really think you could have just climbed into the Mark II if it wasn’t already calibrated for you to use? I practically gift-wrapped it for you, and—”

“Well who am I supposed to have weaponize the suit for _military use_ when you’re no longer our weapons contractor?”

“It didn’t _need_ to be weaponized!” Stark and Rhodes came into view, still bickering.

“Oh really? I thought it was a ‘high-tech prosthesis’, not a weapon,” said Rhodes.

Stark opened his mouth, then hesitated, catching sight of his guests. “...Legally, I can’t contradict that.” He clapped his hands together. “Agent Coulson. Thought you got reassigned. Couldn’t stay away?”

“I’m here with them,” said Coulson. “I’m the Asgardian attaché now.”

Stark’s nose twitched. “Sounds official. Thunderstruck, good to see you again.”

“And you as well,” said Thor, beaming. He hoped very much that Stark would stick with this particular nickname. He knew its origins from the original timeline, and he vastly preferred it to Point Break.

“Is leather armor as casual as you get, or is this an eternal vigilance thing?” said Stark.

“Asgardian leathers are quite comfortable, I assure you,” said Thor. “I do prefer them to cloth most of the time, though are we not to spar later?”

“I guess so,” said Stark, giving Thor a look like he couldn’t quite figure him out. Then his gaze shifted to Loki, and Thor immediately stepped closer to him, his smile widening.

“Allow me to introduce my brother, Loki Odinson, Prince of Asgard and God of Mischief.”

It was a bit more introduction than he usually offered, and based on the funny look Loki shot him, that hadn’t gone unnoticed, but he stuck out his hand to clasp forearms with Stark and Rhodes nonetheless. “Well met, Mr. Stark, Colonel Rhodes. Thor has spoken highly of you both.”

“Thanks, man,” said Rhodes.

“Heard about what went down in Harlem while your big bro was busy electrocuting us in Queens,” said Stark. Thor had to suppress a squawk of protest, knowing very well how Stark liked to goad people and that he rarely did so with any real rancor. “I’m guessing it was you who chopped that roid rage monster in half with a wormhole.”

“It seemed the expedient solution when stabbing it proved less fatal than I’d hoped,” said Loki. Thor could tell he was pleased—it must have taken Stark some effort to acquire that much information about those events. He could have jumped up and down on the spot like a child, he was so excited. His plans were working! Loki was going to be an Avenger, and the other Avengers were going to welcome him!

“Kinda flashy,” said Rhodes, “but zero casualties over that kind of distance against such a destructive opponent? That’s some impressive work.”

“I would have been satisfied with nothing less,” said Loki, with a slight nod to Rhodes.

“So can I get you guys anything?” said Stark, turning and beginning to lead the way back in the direction from which he and Rhodes had come. The rest of them followed. “Roast boar? Barrel of mead?”

“You have those?” said Loki, whom Thor knew was as tired of the Triskelion’s mess hall as he was.

“No,” said Stark, “but I’m a billionaire. I can get whatever food I want. JARVIS?”

“I’ve contacted a catering company, sir. They will be here in an hour.”

“Great. Should give us enough time to run the tests.”

X

The time between their arrival at the mansion and the arrival of the first decent food they’d eaten on Midgard was spent alternating between Stark’s workshop and the courtyard. Thor would strike a suit of Stark’s armor with lightning, and Stark would then assess the effects and return to the workshop for further tinkering and calibration. Within the first two tests, the suits were absorbing the electricity effectively, but Stark would clearly be satisfied with nothing less than perfection.

The technology was barely noteworthy to Loki. It might be merely centuries behind Asgard’s, rather than millennia behind like nearly everything else on this realm, but it was still obsolete and limited to what could be done without seidr. No, he was far more interested in watching Stark’s mind at work than he was in the technology itself. Stark was a man who could have sat back and lived at the height of his world’s comfort and luxury without ever lifting a finger, and yet he seemed positively hungry to dive in and perform the manual labor with his own two hands, and he was obviously a courageous warrior as well. Failure was merely an interesting problem to be solved, rather than a source of discouragement, and he was not so set in his ways as to be incapable of adapting.

Loki compared what he observed of this man with Bruce Banner, who had gained a terrible power by mistake but had no interest in using it for his own benefit. He sought instead to keep it out of the hands of those who would abuse it, and he sacrificed his own hopes and happiness to protect others from the damage he could wreak.

It was easy to understand why a more humble Thor valued Stark’s and Banner’s companionship so highly, even outside of their worth on the battlefield. This realization might have given rise to envy, except for the way Thor was so transparently keen for Loki and Stark to befriend each other. It was actually starting to be annoying, but just as the urge to stab was rising, Rhodes unwittingly intervened. “How fast can you fly using that hammer?” he asked.

“I’ve never really measured it,” said Thor, running a hand through his hair. “The only thing faster on Asgard is our father’s eight-legged stallion, Sleipnir.”

“You must be proud,” said Stark with a wry glance at Loki.

Loki’s expression flattened. This was one of the reasons Midgard was among his least favorite realms to visit. “Why, because I supposedly gave birth to him?”

Rhodes, who had just raised a glass of mead to his lips, spat a mouthful of it all over the War Machine suit. Coulson merely gave a light cough and lifted his eyebrows.

“I would not set much store by what your tales say of us, Stark,” said Thor, slapping him on the back. He managed to do it delicately enough not to knock the man on his face, but he still winced. “Our uncles presented Sleipnir to Odin when he came of age, long before he even met our mother.”

“Uh, great,” said Rhodes, having hastily wiped the mead off his suit. “So, wanna have a race?”

“Of course!” said Thor brightly.

“I’ll referee,” said Coulson, and before Loki knew it, he was alone in the workshop with Stark.

“Anything else you think you already know about me?” he asked testily. If Stark uttered so much as a word about a game of tug-of-war or a goat, he was definitely going to stab him, frail mortal or not.

“Nah, never really got into Norse mythology, but that part sticks out.” He had served himself a plate of roast boar and an assortment of greens, but was too busy tinkering with the boot of one of his suits to pay it any attention. “What does it mean to be the God of Mischief?”

Loki relaxed slightly. “Mostly it means thinking of unconventional solutions, going places and learning things I shouldn’t, and making fools of those who think too highly of themselves.”

“Sounds like a good time,” said Stark. “Hand me that ratchet?” He pointed at one of the numerous tools lying on a table closer to where Loki was standing. Loki flicked a finger and the thing shot into Stark’s hand. Stark was so focused on his task that it took a few seconds for him to realize what had just happened. Then he froze, staring at the ratchet. “Did you just—?”

“What?” said Loki innocently.

“You can move stuff with your mind?”

“When I’d rather not use my hands.”

“How? Some kind of implant or cognitive interface?”

Loki frowned at him. That sounded barbaric. “No, with magic.”

“Magic as in technology so advanced I wouldn’t understand it?” said Stark. “Don’t patronize me, man. I synthesized a new element this week.”

“Magic as in seidr,” said Loki. “True aptitude and mastery are rare, but it is an inborn ability the Aesir and many other long-lived races possess in some form, which allows us to exert our will on reality. Thor has the most powerful raw elemental seidr I’ve ever seen, but he never had the patience to learn to shape it into anything else, or perhaps it’s simply too unwieldy for it.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great, but how does it _work_? You can’t just say something’s magic and that you’re born with it or you’re not. That doesn’t explain anything. What are the principles behind it? Do the laws of conservation of energy and mass apply, or are those not even universal laws at all? Is it biological, mechanical, psychosomatic? Does it have something to do with string theory? Please don’t tell me it involves midichlorians.”

Loki gaped at him. This was not the reaction he had expected. Generally, when he did magic in front of mortals, they were bewildered, impressed, and sometimes frightened. The results tended to be quite amusing. The more inquisitive, like Coulson, might be interested in seeing what else he could do. But not only had no mortal ever asked how it worked, _he_ had never even so much as considered it in all his centuries of study, nor was he aware of anyone else who had. To the Aesir, seidr simply _was_. Loki knew exactly how much power he had at his disposal, how to ration it out for what he wanted to accomplish in any given situation, and how long it would take him to recover. He had learned thousands of spells and devised hundreds of his own. Seidr was as integral a part of him as his own heartbeat. And yet he had not the faintest notion of what made this wondrous power work. As far as he knew, no one in the nine realms did.

He became dimly aware that Stark was still spouting questions. Unable to answer them and unable to think through his bafflement with the noise, Loki waved his hand and focused briefly on his intended spell. His seidr responded as it always did, regardless of this intellectual upheaval, and Stark yelped as a green-gold glow enveloped him.

X

The earliest Pepper was able to get away from Stark Industries was mid-afternoon, but to be fair, she rarely tried to get away early. Her life had gotten so crazy lately that she might as well be at Tony’s house while he entertained a guest from another planet. Work, even in the role of CEO, was the only semi-normal thing she could hang onto.

She half-expected Tony to have thrown another party, so it came as a relief when the only extra car parked outside was one of those sleek, sturdy black SUVs with tinted windows that the SHIELD guys all seemed to love. She saw Agent Coulson standing near the edge of the cliff. She squinted. What was he doing? She hoped he hadn’t been out here for long. Tony might’ve decided to lock him out in retaliation for the house-arrest.

“I’m gonna head inside,” she said. “Can you talk to Agent Coulson and see if he needs anything?”

“Sure thing, boss,” said Happy, eyes twinkling at her in the rearview mirror. She smiled back. He still wasn’t over her being CEO, and he made a point of proudly calling her “boss” at every opportunity.

Inside, DUM-E was still picking up pieces of rubble. Pepper wondered what it had done this time to earn the dunce cap. She made her way downstairs, intrigued by the delicious smells. What kind of food had Tony ordered? She walked into the workshop and froze. Instead of Tony, Thor, and probably James, she found only one unfamiliar black-haired man in strange green and black clothes with gold trim, standing next to a table piled with food.

“Uh...JARVIS?” said Pepper nervously. Immediately, there was a loud squeaking sound, and she looked around in time to see a small animal pelting towards her. She shrieked and jumped back. It stopped in its tracks, and maybe she was losing it, but she could have sworn it looked hurt by her reaction.

“Good afternoon, Miss Potts,” said JARVIS.

“What the hell is going on?” said Pepper.

“Mr. Odinson seems to have turned Mr. Stark into a flying squirrel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google the chapter title. Right now. Do it. 
> 
> *irritatingly smug face* Okay, you can drag me all you want for that pun but I will never be sorry.
> 
> I'm not sure I'd recommend googling about Loki's game of tug-of-war with a goat, but I won't stop you. Norse Mythology is extremely weird.
> 
> I had a hard time writing Tony and Loki's conversation (which I really wanted to end with Loki turning Tony into a flying squirrel), but then it occurred to me that an elitist society with few problems, like Asgard, might not think to pursue all possible lines of inquiry about an ability they've always had, and that's why Tony was able to break Loki's brain. He's going to have some serious research to do when he gets home. 
> 
> My headcanon for the difference between the magic human sorcerers use and magic like Loki's is that seidr is something you have to be born with, and it's some kind of energy supplied by the person and magnified by the the world they're on. A human sorcerer, on the other hand, has no innate power. They have to learn how to draw from and command dimensional energy, which requires them to learn the kind of theory that the Aesir have never needed to think about. This, to me, accounts for why Stephen Strange could get the better of Loki after only a couple of years at best as a sorcerer. He has far less raw power because none of it comes from himself, but his more detailed understanding of the mechanics and the governing principles at work is a serious advantage. The element of surprise didn't hurt either. 
> 
> I'm almost positive there's only one chapter left until we head back to Asgard.


	12. The Earth-Asgard Alliance

Pepper stared at the squirrel, her mouth falling open. She should probably be freaking out, but she found that after the madness of the last two weeks, she simply didn’t have the energy for it. She looked warily at the man standing across the room, who still hadn’t so much as glanced at her. “Are you Loki Odinson?” Tony had found out some information about Thor and his brother since the showdown at the Expo, and this man certainly wasn’t the Mr. Odinson she had already met.

He finally looked around. “What? Oh, yes.” He seemed very distracted. “And your name, good lady?”

This chivalry in the face of the squirrel sitting on the floor in front of her, tail and whiskers quivering, made everything even more surreal. “Uh. Pepper Potts. I’m the CEO of Stark Industries.” Considering that she had no idea why Tony was now a squirrel, she decided against mentioning her personal involvement with him.

“My brother mentioned you when he told me of the battle at the Stark Expo. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too,” said Pepper, closing her eyes in the hopes that maybe when she opened them again, everything would make sense. It did not. “You—you turned Tony into a flying squirrel?”

“I did.”

“And...uh...why did...you do that?” 

“He was talking.”

Tony the squirrel gave an indignant squeak. 

“Don’t worry; the spell is harmless,” said Loki. “I’ve already explained that to him, which is why he’s no longer chattering incessantly and gnawing on my boot.”

Pepper sighed and walked forward. “You know,” she said, bending down and carefully scooping Tony up, “there are a lot of people who probably wish they could turn him into a small animal, including a few generals and at least one senator. This is just the first time he’s met someone who could actually do it.”

Pepper scratched Tony lightly behind his ears. He seemed to enjoy it, but as soon as she was close to the food table, he jumped out of her hands and landed beside the salad, from which he snatched a crouton and began munching on it. He had soon filled his cheeks with pieces of crouton, and once his paws were free, he jumped and glided over to his disassembled suit. Pepper stood next to Loki and watched Tony struggle to maneuver a small screwdriver (that was almost the full length of his body) towards something on the gauntlet of his suit. 

X

Even after spending the last few days with the Odinsons, Coulson still would have bet on Colonel Rhodes to win the race. It was still difficult to imagine a man flying by hammer at all even though he had witnessed it, but breaking the sound barrier was something else entirely. And yet, after about ten minutes of soaring out over the ocean, Thor beat Rhodes back to the clifftop by a full ten seconds, a huge grin on his face. 

“Damn,” said Rhodes, opening his mask. “Even with the lightning boost, I still couldn’t catch you. How do you do that?”

Thor laughed. “It was a worthy contest, Rhodes, but I’ve been flying far longer than you.”

“So this is Thor?” said Mr. Hogan, who had stood beside Coulson with his hands cupped around his eyes to block out the sun as he tried to watch the race. Coulson watched Thor go through another jovial introduction that soon had Mr. Hogan looking less grumpy than the SHIELD agent had ever seen him. Thor was really a ridiculously easy guy to like. Coulson was glad he’d beaten Sitwell to the attaché assignment, and not just because he no longer had to babysit a billionaire pain in the ass as a result. 

The four of them made their way inside the house and down to the workshop, where Coulson frowned at the sight of Miss Potts standing next to Loki. They both had their arms folded and their heads tilted to the side, staring intently at the suit Stark had been working on when everyone else left for the race. 

“Hey, Pepper. What’s going on? Where’s Tony?” said Rhodes, while Mr. Hogan made straight for the food table. 

Neither Miss Potts nor Loki answered, and Thor, Rhodes, Hogan, and Coulson all followed their gazes to...a squirrel that appeared to be attaching wires to a circuit board beneath the outer armor layer of a piece of the Iron Man suit. Coulson didn’t know a whole lot about rodents, but he was pretty sure they were usually more interested in chewing through wires than clipping them into place. 

“What the hell?” said Hogan. 

“Loki…,” said Thor. He sounded both stern and apprehensive. 

“What?” said Loki. He sounded both defiant and amused. 

It all clicked together, and Coulson let out a peal of laughter that made Hogan, Rhodes, and Miss Potts all jump, but he couldn’t stop. He didn’t think he’d ever laughed harder in his life. Tears streamed down his face and his ribs ached. Tony Stark was a flying squirrel. This was the best day of his life. 

“I don’t get it,” said Hogan. “What’s so funny?”

“Change him back,” said Thor.

“Why?” said Loki. “I think he’s making better progress with those little paws than he would otherwise at the moment. I would hate to impede his work.”

“Wait…,” said Rhodes. “Are you saying  _ that’s  _ Tony?”

With a long-suffering sigh, Loki waved a hand in the squirrel’s direction. Green-gold light shone around his fingers before engulfing the small creature and growing rapidly into the shape of an adult man, and then Tony Stark was standing there amid pieces of his suit, looking exactly as he had when Coulson had left with Thor and Rhodes. 

Rhodes and Hogan yelled and jumped back. Coulson, who had nearly regained his composure by that point, fell victim to a second wave of hysterical laughter. Miss Potts looked like she was trying not to do the same. 

Stark himself was glowering at Loki. “Not cool, dude. Couldn’t you see I was in the middle of something?” 

“I told you,” said Loki to Thor, who rolled his eyes. 

“And you’re okay?” said Miss Potts, closing the short distance between them and running her hands over his shoulders and upper arms.

“I’m fine.” He blinked hard and looked around. “Squirrel vision kinda sucks. Not gonna miss that.”

X

To Thor’s surprise and relief, Stark took Loki’s prank fairly well. Far better, in fact, than had Thor himself or any of their friends on Asgard, each of whom had fallen victim to a similar spell at various times over the centuries. Unlike them, Stark apparently found the experience too interesting to be humiliated by it, no matter how hard the son of Coul had laughed at him. 

They stayed a while longer, until everyone had eaten their fill of the excellent food and drink, and when it came time to part company, they did so in good spirits. 

“Don’t get too cocky about that race,” said Rhodes. “I expect a rematch the next time you’re on Earth.”

“Of course,” said Thor, grinning. “I will be happy to win again.” 

“Oh, I see how it is,” said Rhodes, chuckling. “Tony, you better make me a faster suit so I can teach this guy a lesson.”

“I let you borrow a hand-me-down  _ one  _ time and now you expect me to make you a suit? I’ve created a monster,” said Stark. He turned to Loki. “You find out those answers about how magic works, you better come tell me.” 

“I will,” said Loki. “I am glad to have met you, Anthony Stark.”

“Thanks,” said Stark. “Never thought I’d hear that from a guy who turned me into a squirrel. You gotta work on your friendly overtures.”

Loki laughed—a sound Thor had heard far too rarely of late. “You are not the first to tell me so.”

X

“You can’t be serious, Nick” said Pierce.

“Oh, I am very serious,” said Fury.

“Not only are you going to let these guys take Bruce Banner with them, you’re going to hand over one of the only other things we’ve got that we could use against hostile aliens?”

“They’ve already proven that they can wipe the floor with the best fighters Earth has, and that’s only two of them. The cube wouldn’t be enough, and they know more about it than we do. We can either give it to them and hope they make good on their promises to protect this planet, or we can hold onto it and hope that Thor was lying about it being a magnet for world-destroying alien warlords. Except that we  _ can’t _ really hope he was lying, because that would mean he and Loki are the world-destroying alien warlords. It’s our only way forward, Pierce.”

“You’re taking an awful lot on faith.”

Fury gave a grim chuckle. “What else can we do when we’re dealing with gods?”

“And what does Earth get out of this except protection from a vague future threat?”

“I’m not sure we can really call it ‘vague’ after all the intel they gave us on Thanos and Malekith and their armies, and I’d think protection from very real future threats we can’t hope to defend against on our own would be worth quite a lot.”

“We still have no actual proof they didn’t just make these threats up to manipulate us. They hold all the cards.”

“For now,” said Fury. “I have something in mind that might put a few cards in our hand. How they react to it should tell us a lot.”

X

The morning brought with it a message for Thor and Loki from Heimdall that the Queen expected Odin to awaken by that evening. Coulson was visibly crestfallen when they told him this might be their last day on Earth for a while. He brought them to the same briefing room as before, where they found Fury waiting for them again. There was a large silver briefcase on the table in front of him. 

“I’ve decided to grant your request,” said Fury. He opened the briefcase, the contents of which bathed his face with blue light. He turned it to face them, revealing the Tesseract. Even though this was the outcome Thor had hoped for, he had to fight a sudden impulse to take the thing and hurl it into the nearest star. Was he mad to want the Tesseract on Asgard, to serve as bait for Thanos like the Aether had been for Malekith? Perhaps. But mad or not, it was the right thing to do. It should be Asgard’s fight, not Earth’s.

“Thank you,” he said. “We will do everything in our power to live up to the trust you have placed in us.”

“That’s good!” said Fury with a trace of sardonic humor. “I thought you might start today.”

“How so?” said Loki.

“I want to send a few extra people with you. A delegation from Earth so that we can begin broadening our understanding of the universe.” 

“Of course,” said Thor, smiling. “We will welcome them gladly.” He hoped Fury wouldn’t inadvertently send any Hydra agents, but they would be so outmatched by even Aesir children that they would hardly pose a threat anyway. 

“How many will you send?” said Loki—if not enthusiastically, at least politely. 

“On a more long-term basis, just three, but if you’ll agree to it, I’d like two SHIELD agents to be able to come and go as needed.”

“That sounds reasonable enough,” said Thor.

Fury touched a button on the table. “You can come in now.”

The conference room door opened, and Thor froze at the sight of the three people walking into the room.

“See, Darcy?” Jane hissed. “I told you they didn’t fly us all the way over here just to shoot us.”

“There’s still time,” said Darcy. “Hey Thor, Loki.”

They both nodded at her. Erik stood behind the two women, looking like he couldn’t decide whether to be eager or wary. 

A heavy sort of numbness swept over Thor. This Jane, who neither knew him nor cared for him, was going to be coming to Asgard to stay for the mortal equivalent of a long-term basis? 

“I spoke with Dr. Foster on the phone last night,” said Fury. “Asked if she’d like an opportunity to take her studies to a place where the subject matter is a little less theoretical.”

“I don’t want to be a burden,” said Jane, turning to Thor and Loki, “but this would be such an incredible opportunity. I mean, I never even imagined—”

“You could never be a burden,” said Thor hoarsely. He forced a smile, though he felt like he’d been stabbed in the heart. “Any of you,” he added, smiling at Darcy and Erik too.

“Good, ‘cause this is gonna be worth so much more than six credits,” said Darcy. “Lauren Harwood in my Intercultural Comms class can take that U.N. internship and shove it up—”

Erik cut her off with a nervous cough, his eyes on Fury, who only seemed amused. 

“What do I need to do to send my agents to you in a couple weeks or so?”

“Call for Heimdall,” said Loki. “He will let us know, and then we or someone else will come to escort them to a Bifrost site.”

“Can’t they just stand in one of the sites we’ve already seen you use?”

“I suppose they could,” said Thor. 

“It may still be easier for them if an Aesir guide accompanies them, at least the first time,” said Loki. “It is not an especially tranquil mode of travel, and as you have seen, they will need to stand in precisely the right place in order to arrive in one piece.”

The apprehension on Erik’s face was intensifying, but Jane was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

“We’ll take the guide,” said Fury.

“If that’s all,” said Loki, “I should find Banner and see if he’s made his decision.”

X

Every time Bruce felt tempted to believe he’d only imagined meeting the actual Thor and Loki, all he had to do was look in the mirror at his unfamiliar blue-eyed, angular-featured face. It must be a face people could trust, because it hadn’t been too hard for him to land a dishwashing job at a shabby diner, even though he’d been wearing slightly ill-fitting clothing he’d stolen from an unattended hamper at a laundromat when he applied. It was also bizarre how much of a difference four inches of additional height could make to his vantage point, considering that he regularly grew several feet.

Washing dishes for hours on end gave him plenty of time to think.  _ Wouldn’t you like to be able to stop running, at least for a little while? _ Stop running. Stop working shit jobs just to stay fed. Stop wondering when something would set him off. It was a mark of how bad the last few years had been that choosing between going on the way he had ever since the accident and letting himself be abducted by aliens didn’t really feel like much of a choice at all. 

His shift ended and he went back to his water-damaged, possibly bedbug-infested motel room. It was in exactly the same condition as when he’d left that morning, which confirmed his suspicions that the custodial staff was nonexistent. He turned to hook the chain in place and turn the deadbolt. When he faced the room again, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Good evening, Dr. Banner,” said Loki.

“God!” Bruce yelped. “Was that necessary?” 

“Probably not,” said Loki. “But it was fun. Have you decided? Will you be coming with us to Asgard or remaining...” He looked around, taking in the flickering light, the scuffed furniture, and the blotches in the wallpaper. “...Here?”

Bruce couldn’t even feel offended by Loki turning his nose up at his accommodations. They were pretty bad. He laughed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but what the hell. I don’t really have anything else to lose. I might as well become the first human to see another world.”

“You won’t be,” said Loki, “but that’s the spirit!”

“What?” said Bruce.

“Come along,” said Loki, brushing past him and undoing the lock and chain. “The Bifrost site isn’t far.” 

Bruce opened his mouth to protest that he needed to collect his stuff, but then he remembered that the only things he had to his name were a toothbrush and a disposable razor, so he shrugged, tossed the room key on the nightstand, and followed the alien prince out into the crumbling parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had lots of different ideas about how Pepper would react to squirrel Tony, but I couldn't get any of them off the ground. Then it occurred to me that she might just be too tired from the events of IM2 for anything more than the John Mulaney "This might as well happen" reaction. Which ended up being the perfect fit. And yes, Loki mentally punched the air in triumph upon causing Coulson to roll around laughing. He's been hoping to get some kind of extreme reaction out of him this whole time. 
> 
> Oh look, I figured out what to do with Jane, Darcy, and Erik! They will likely still be fairly minor figures in this fic, but I wasn't happy with the idea of shelving them completely when I could instead mine them for angst. 
> 
> Any guesses on which two SHIELD agents will be the Asgardian liaisons? (It's probably going to be more of a cameo situation than a substantial plot thread, but who knows?)
> 
> Okay, now that the Earth field trip is over, it's time for some House of Odin Family Drama™. *cracks knuckles* This should be fun.


	13. Exit, Pursued by a Hulk

“So how does this, uh, Bifrost thing work?” said Banner. He looked like himself again, and he was wringing his hands together and casting glances all around. As accustomed to the Bifrost as Loki was, it was hard to imagine anyone being nervous about traveling by it. What did Banner have to fear?  _ He _ wasn’t the one about to have a conversation with his parents that had resulted in his attempted suicide in another timeline. Loki had done his best to keep his thoughts on Midgard these past few days, and he had largely succeeded, but the reprieve was over. He had not the faintest idea what this terrible secret could be, and dread was pooling sickeningly in his stomach. This would be so much easier if he was the sort of man who could tolerate being aware a secret existed without knowing the secret itself.

“It’s quite simple. We stand in a certain spot, and then Heimdall will open the Bifrost to pull us to Asgard. The entire journey will take but moments.” This time, the Bifrost site was located on a patch of grass to the side of the road, about a mile from the shabby inn where Banner had been staying. 

“Huh, so it’s kind of a ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ type thing?”

Loki frowned at him. 

“Oh, sorry, I guess you don’t get a lot of Earth entertainment.”

“Our visits in the past were somewhat infrequent,” said Loki. “Though in my adolescence, I did rather enjoy a few of your plays.” 

“What does it feel like?”

“What?” said Loki, who had been reminiscing about performing before a crowd of excitable mortals. Such a shame their lives were so short. Only a few decades in which to create before death claimed them. Loki doubted anyone on this planet remembered the brilliant playwright or any of his delightful works four centuries later. 

“The Bifrost,” said Banner.

Loki could have told him plainly that the Bifrost felt exactly as it looked: an exhilarating rush across the stars. However, his own mounting anxiety was such that he did not feel particularly inclined to relieve Banner’s. In fact, he rather preferred to do the opposite. “It’s not remotely painful, at least for an Aesir. I couldn’t say what it’s like for a mortal.”

Alarm flashed over Banner’s face. Loki pretended not to notice. 

X

Jane, Darcy, and Erik all staggered into the Observatory with Thor. Jane had seized Thor’s arm to steady herself, and he tried not to react to the thrill of electricity set off by her touch. As soon as she had regained her balance, he moved a step away from her. She appeared oblivious, as she, like her companions, was already too busy staring open-mouthed at her surroundings. 

“Welcome to Asgard,” said Heimdall. His smile was more sincere than when Thor had brought Jane home with him the day before Malekith’s attack, which boded well. “Lady Sif and the Warriors Three are coming to greet you, and they’re bringing horses enough for all of you to ride. The Queen will be coming as well.” 

“You ride horses?” said Darcy.

“Of course,” said Thor. “Asgardian steeds are highly intelligent and superior to any mechanical land vehicle. We have our longships for when we must travel by sea or air.”

Erik let out an incredulous laugh, and Thor smiled. How strange it must be to find that all the stories one grew up with as a child turned out to be true in some fashion. He turned to Heimdall. “Loki and Banner?” Erik perked up at this. In the hours since Fury unveiled his plan to send the three humans to Asgard in a formal diplomatic capacity, Thor had learned that Erik was already acquainted with Banner from before. Possibly a connection from one of those PhDs. Thor hoped it would make Asgard feel a little more familiar for both of them.

“They’ve reached their Bifrost site,” said Heimdall. He turned Hofund very slightly in the plinth, and the gears of the Observatory shifted around them. Jane watched the movements, eyes alight with eager curiosity. 

X

“This is the spot,” said Loki.

Sweat glistened on Banner’s forehead and he was fidgeting worse than ever. His only response was a nod.

“Would you like me to hold your hand?” 

“What? No.”

“I could assume the form of Dr. Ross again.”

“I’m fine!” 

“As long as you’re certain.”

“Stop trying to annoy me into forgetting that I’m about to travel to another planet inside a beam of energy powerful enough to cut me in half,” Banner snapped. “It’s not helping.”

X

Heimdall activated the Bifrost with a downward push, and the brilliant beams of energy roared out into space. “All of you, move to the side, quickly,” he said.

Thor frowned. They were hardly standing directly in the way as it was, but Heimdall was not to be gainsaid, so he ushered the three mortals as far as they could get from the Bifrost without moving towards the exit. No sooner had they done so than Loki hit the Observatory at a dead sprint as though the tails of his coat were on fire. “Help!” 

The answer to Thor’s question arrived before he could ask it: the Hulk barrelled out of the Bifrost, his enraged eyes fixed on Loki. Heimdall stepped deftly to the side, allowing the green beast to pass him. 

“Loki, what happened?” Thor yelled as he ran after his brother and the Hulk.

“I might’ve deliberately stoked Banner’s anxieties about the Bifrost,” Loki yelled back. “Just a bit. He started transforming as soon as we were caught up in it.” 

“You know, Brother,” said Thor, “for someone so clever, you can be kind of an idiot sometimes.” He took advantage of Hulk’s hesitation as he realized how foreign his surroundings were to leap up on his back and get him in a choke hold using Mjolnir. 

“How else would I know I’m related to you?” Loki retorted, having now gained enough distance from the Hulk (who was roaring his displeasure and grabbing at Thor, trying to rip him off his back) to wheel around and prepare to enter the fray on his own terms. Sif, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg were only a hundred yards or so ahead of them on the bridge, and they had left the horses behind to come and help.

X

The Queen of Asgard was eager to see her sons again. She had periodically watched over them from Hlidskjalf in between attending to her many duties as regent, but such distant glimpses were not enough, intriguing as they were.

Having spent the better part of a millennium making sure her two incredibly gifted boys didn’t get themselves killed doing something foolish (easily as difficult an endeavor as ruling a kingdom), it was not entirely a surprise when the first she saw of them on the Rainbow Bridge was a large green creature tossing them, Sif, and the Warriors Three about like dolls. As she watched, Hogun and Volstagg tumbled off the bridge into the sea below. Her Einherjar guard tightened their grips on their weapons, but she merely sighed and shook her head. “Send for a longship to fish our brave warriors out of the water,” she said. 

She continued to watch the scuffle. She knew from what she had observed from Hlidskjalf that the green creature was an ally, but she had never seen such an undisciplined fighting style. The longer she watched, the more he looked like...like a child. A rather large child who didn’t know his strength, who lacked the words words to convey his distress and was left to attempt to do so through destruction instead. She dismounted lightly from Gyllir and began walking, weaving her seidr into the groundwork for spell she hadn’t used in about nine centuries. “Hold,” she said when the Einherjar made to follow her. 

X

“Are you quite sure this brute is your friend?” grunted Fandral as he ducked one of Hulk’s fists. “He doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

“If we can just get him to calm down, he’ll return to his mortal form and I can introduce you properly,” said Thor, using Mjolnir to block a large green elbow.

“And I suppose doing battle with him is how we calm him down?” said Sif sarcastically. She was the only one Hulk had failed to strike thus far, but it was not for his lack of trying. 

Thor caught sight of Darcy standing with her phone pointed at them from the threshold of the Observatory. Jane and Erik stood on either side of her, both looking horrified. In the second he had taken to look, Hulk, having swatted through simulacrum after simulacrum, finally caught the real Loki around the middle and hurled him off the bridge the same as he had done to Hogun and Volstagg. 

The sight of Loki falling from the Rainbow Bridge had Thor reacting without thinking. Some part of his brain knew that he would land safely in the water like their friends, where he would be in even less danger than they thanks to his shapeshifting abilities, but that part barely registered. He abandoned the fight without a backward glance, spinning Mjolnir and leaping after his brother. He caught him before he hit the water and flew back up to the bridge. 

Loki, who had been in the middle of protesting at Thor’s manner of carrying him about, froze, eyes wide. When Thor saw what he was looking at, he did the same. Their mother was walking, completely unarmed, along the gleaming crystal towards the Hulk, who noticed this at roughly the same moment they did. After knocking Sif and Fandral off their feet, he let out an inarticulate roar and began lumbering her way. Frigga’s only reaction was to continue walking closer, her expression utterly serene. A moment later, she began to sing. Thor’s brow furrowed. It was a song he recognized dimly from his early childhood.

Far more bewildering than the sound of the familiar lullaby was Hulk’s reaction. His gait faltered and slowed, his arms lowered, and his fists unclenched, leaving him standing before the Queen of Asgard, almost docile. She smiled up at him and laid a hand over his heart. “You needn’t be frightened, little one,” she said. “You are safe here.”

Thor exchanged a disgruntled glance with Loki, who also seemed taken aback at the sight of their mother treating the one who’d been flinging her own sons about seconds before like he was a small child in need of comfort, never mind that it was actually working. 

X

This time, when Bruce came to himself, it was to find a smiling middle-aged woman with golden curls cascading over one shoulder and a richly embroidered dress that fell to the tops of her shoes standing in front of him, pressing something into his hands. 

“M-ma’am?” he said. He looked around and had to do a double-take at just about everything. The bridge of multicolored crystal, the golden city in the distance, the breathtaking evening sky that was already more full of stars than even the clearest night on Earth. This must be Asgard. Panic seized him. The entire purpose of coming here was so that he wouldn’t have to be a danger to anyone anymore, but the Other Guy had just ruined his first impression. 

“You have nothing to fear, good man,” said the woman as if she had read his mind. (Had she?) “You may have wounded the pride of a few of Asgard’s finest warriors just now, my sons included, but I’m sure they they will recover.” She had turned her smile to something over his shoulder, and he spun around. Thor and Loki were there, looking kinda rumpled, as well as a man and a woman in armor and two more men who were sopping wet and climbing out of a flying boat onto the glittering bridge. A little ways behind them, he saw a few more people, and he had to do yet another double-take. Erik Selvig? He hadn’t seen his colleague since before the botched experiment. What the hell was he doing here? Suddenly very conscious of the number of eyes on him as he stood there in nothing but another pair of tattered pants, he fumbled with the fabric he was holding. It was some kind cream-colored tunic with golden embroidery like Celtic knots along the hems. He pulled it on. 

“Thor, Loki?” said the woman. “Will you introduce me to your guests?”

X

While Hogun and Volstagg left to change into dry armor and Frigga returned to Odin’s bedside, Thor, Loki, Sif, and Fandral showed the four humans to their guest chambers in the palace, a cluster of four rooms in a corridor near the library. It took approximately five seconds for Fandral to start flirting with Darcy, who plainly had no objections whatsoever. Jane was so excited to get to the library that Erik had to remind her that they needed to eat first.

The eight of them, soon joined by Hogun and Volstagg, dined in one of the smaller banquet halls. Seeing so many of his friends together in one place lifted Thor’s spirits greatly. As they ate, he regaled them all with the tales of his and Loki’s adventures on Earth. He was careful to give Loki plenty of room to tell his side of things as well and to give him credit for what he had done. However, he couldn’t help noticing that even as Loki spoke animatedly and smiled at everyone, he barely touched his food. After their account caught back up to the present, Volstagg took over as storyteller, entertaining the humans by describing his favorite acts of heroism from centuries past. About five minutes into this, Loki slipped away from the table. Thor set down his goblet and followed.

When Thor caught up to Loki at a balcony overlooking Mother’s garden, surprise flashed briefly over the latter’s face before he could mask it, and Thor felt a pang of regret for all the times he had not gone after his brother when he went off alone from a social setting. “I made you a promise,” he said. “I mean to keep it. As soon as Father wakes, we will speak to him.”

“I never doubted you,” said Loki, picking absently at his hands. “It was a good distraction, Midgard. I didn’t have to think about what was coming. But now we’re home, and I am at once desperately curious and terribly afraid to know the secret that, in another life, was my undoing.”

“It was not only the secret,” said Thor, trying to convince himself as much as Loki. “It was everything surrounding it. Father was in the Odinsleep, Mother was tending to him, and I was banished. You were left alone, unexpectedly on the throne and unjustly suspected of placing yourself there for lust of power, with the war I started against Jotunheim to deal with. This time, none of that has happened, and you will not be alone.”

“But how could I seek my own destruction under  _ any _ circumstances? Am I so weak that—”

“You are not weak,” Thor interrupted. “Or if you are, it is a weakness I share.”

“What are you talking about?” said Loki irritably, as though the very idea of Thor being weak in any way were ludicrous. 

“It was not merely Thanos’s destruction I sought after he murdered you in front of me, Brother,” said Thor. “You were all I had left, and we had finally begun to repair what was broken between us, and then I was suddenly facing four thousand years alone, my family and most of my friends dead, king of a refugee people on the brink of extinction. Thrice in those two days, I stared death in the face and would have welcomed it. I clung to your body instead of seeking escape when Thanos blasted our ship to pieces around me. I took on all the power of Nidavellir to forge the weapon to kill him. After I cleaved his head from his shoulders with it, I held the Time Stone in my fist until it tore me apart. It is not by my own doing that I still live.”

Loki stared at him, looking stricken. Thor smiled. “I cannot say for certain what went through your mind in the other timeline. We never discussed it. But I think in that moment you believed there was no other way to escape what you had learned and what you thought it meant. Perhaps it was only that you were already dangling over an abyss that allowed such an idea to take hold of you. Perhaps you would have dismissed it easily standing on firm ground. I like to think so.” 

A low, croaky call sounded from somewhere above them, and they looked up to see two winged silhouettes against the star-filled sky, flapping their way closer. “Father’s summons,” said Loki. 

Thor reached up to grip the back of Loki’s neck. The two ravens alighted on the balustrade and looked at the princes expectantly. “Tell him we will be right there,” said Thor. Hugin bobbed his head and Munin gave another croak, and they both took flight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original plan was to get right to the family drama, but then I was struck by the mental image of Loki fleeing out of the Bifrost, the Hulk hot on his heels. It was too funny to pass up, especially because it provided the opportunity to have Frigga defeat the Hulk with her Mom powers, which I was already hoping to find a place for. I like to think that most of the trouble Loki got into before the events of the films happened when he was bored, because that's when his skills for reasonable, strategic planning go out the window.
> 
> Couldn't resist making Loki a Shakespeare fan in this fic too. Unfortunately, Bruce was too nervous to realize what Loki was alluding to, otherwise Loki would have explained that he was one of Shakespeare's actors (and probably the inspiration for Puck) when he was a teenager. On a related note, this might be my new favorite chapter title. 
> 
> The first scene I wrote for this chapter was Thor's conversation with Loki at the end, and I don't think any other scene has been so emotional to write. It's clear enough watching Infinity War that Thor didn't care whether he lived or died, but writing about that from Thor's own perspective, and having it be what helps him understand Loki's attempted suicide, hit me really hard.


	14. Tarnished Gold

Thor and Loki made their way up to the royal apartments near the top of the palace. They didn’t exactly drag their feet, but neither did they make anything resembling haste. Every Odinsleep Thor could remember except one had ended in the same manner: with the whole family gathering together in the king’s study to prepare for the following day, when Odin would resume the throne. The study was a far less formal setting than the throne room or the council chambers. It was large and circular. Braziers alternated with bookcases all along the walls, and endless knotwork intertwined across nearly every gilded surface. Opposite the door was a wide balcony that overlooked everything from the palace steps to Heimdall’s Observatory, and on either side of the room were two spacious raised alcoves. The one on the left housed a hnefatafl table and a loom; the right, a massive desk heaped with books and loose parchment, where Odin did most of his work when he wasn’t sitting on Hlidskjalf. At the center of the room was a sunken fire pit surrounded by a carpet of furs and four heavy, lavish sofas. 

At the princes’ entrance, Geri and Freki leapt up from where they had been curled on the furs and dashed over to greet them, ears perked up, tails wagging madly, and tongues lolling out. Even though Thor was now facing the most important conversation he would ever force his family to have, he couldn’t help smiling at the wolves and scratching their ears, though they soon abandoned him for Loki, who had produced out of thin air several large pieces of meat still warm from the banquet hall. 

Odin and Frigga stood on the balcony, and they turned as Thor and Loki approached and stopped a couple of the wide steps below them. “Your mother tells me much has happened while I slept,” said Odin. “It must be true, for how else would the palace have acquired four mortals as guests?”

As with Heimdall, this was a better reaction than when Thor had brought Jane alone, though Odin did not sound exactly pleased—more that he was waiting to hear a very good explanation before he decided whether or not to be displeased. Perhaps mortals were only unwelcome when the Crown Prince was courting one.

“It is time for Asgard to expand its alliances,” said Thor. 

“Alliances?” said Odin. “Asgard has protected Midgard for millennia. What would be the value in any closer an alliance than that when there is nothing the humans can offer us?” 

“I think they may surprise us, Father,” said Loki. “One of the four we brought can match Thor in battle.”

Odin raised his eyebrows. 

“I would’ve won,” Thor grumbled.

“Of course you would,” said Loki.

“I was going easy on him!”

“Boys,” said Frigga, looking amused.

“And what prompted this sudden desire for an alliance?” said Odin. “When last we spoke, Thor, you could do little but rage and storm about repaying the Jotnar for their supposed act of war.”

“I have no quarrel with the Jotnar. I would have them for allies as well.”

Both of his parents stared at him in blank shock, and he could feel the same reaction from his brother, even though this wasn’t the first time Loki had heard him voice the idea. 

“Can this be my son who speaks?” said Odin. His brow furrowed and his gaze grew more intent. “What has happened to you? You are not as you were.”

“No, I am not,” Thor agreed. “But before I tell you all, I would have you know that what I say is for the good of Asgard, the nine realms, and this family.” He lifted Mjolnir off the hook at his side and held it out to his father, handle first. “There is a spell to prevent any from wielding Mjolnir who are not worthy of it. I want you to cast it.”

“Thor,” said Frigga. She stepped forward and clasped his arm. “You do not need to prove yourself to us.”

“Thank you, Mother,” said Thor, covering her fingers with his free hand, “but I would leave no room for doubt. What I have to say will not be easy to hear.”

“Very well,” said Odin. Frigga moved to stand by Loki’s other side. Odin lifted a hand, and Mjolnir flew into his grasp. Without taking his eye from Thor, he held the hammer to his lips, and the swell of power emanating from him made all the fires in the study dim. “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” 

He let Mjolnir fall onto the step between them with an echoing thud, a gleaming triquetra now emblazoned on its head.

As Thor bent down and reached for the handle, he had a moment to wonder if he had just doomed himself. Since he last wielded a Mjolnir enchanted with the worthiness spell, he had helped destroy Asgard and his sister and he had failed to save his brother, Heimdall, and half of his surviving people from Thanos. He closed his hand around it and lifted. When Mjolnir came up off the floor as easily as usual, he felt a surprising tightening in his throat. His eyes fell briefly closed. He was still worthy. He hooked the hammer back on his belt and resumed his place beside Loki.

“You could not have done that five days ago,” said Odin. 

“If you knew that, then why did you want to make me regent?” said Thor.

“I didn’t,” said Odin. “My misgivings were such that I put off the Odinsleep as long as I could. However, I came to hope the experience might do you more good than it would do Asgard harm, and I was reassured to know you would have had your mother and brother to intervene if you attempted anything truly foolish.”

Thor felt Loki shift next to him. He suspected that Loki had thought Odin blind to his eldest son’s faults, which was why he had resorted to such elaborate schemes to disrupt the coronation.

“Will you tell us now what has happened to you?” said Frigga. 

“I will,” said Thor. “Five days ago, I held the Time Stone in my hand, and it sent me eight years into the past, to the night of my coronation.”

Frigga’s hand flew to her mouth. 

“Why would you do such a thing?” said Odin. He looked astonished. “Time is not to be meddled with lightly.”

Thor shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to come back, but I had nothing left to lose. I had already watched all three of you die and Asgard blasted into rubble.” At this, Frigga clutched at Loki, who put an arm around her and murmured something reassuring in her ear. “There were perhaps two thousand Aesir left alive when I picked up the Stone.”

“Then Ragnarok is upon us,” breathed Odin. “How?”

“Ragnarok was not the problem,” said Thor. “Loki and I had no choice but to unleash Surtur in order to defeat Hela.”

“Hela?” said Frigga. She looked sharply at her husband. “When you came back from Niflheim, you told me she was dead. You promised me she would never escape to harm our sons!”

If Odin had not been fresh from the Odinsleep, Thor thought he might have collapsed where he stood. As it was, he still swayed a little and seemed to age visibly before Thor’s eyes. “It was my intent to slay her. I could not do it. For all her crimes, she is still my daughter, Frigga, and I made her what she is.”

“Then even Mother didn’t know?” said Thor. “Why did you never tell us about her? She is so strong, and we had no time to prepare.” Anger burned sudden and hot in his veins. The intensity of it surprised him. Dark clouds were even gathering outside, obscuring the stars. “Was she meant to remain locked up and forgotten forever, or have you always known that your death would release her, and didn’t care because she would no longer be your problem?” 

“You know not of what you speak,” said Odin, bristling. “You haven’t seen what I have. You don’t—”

“I see with  _ perfect _ clarity,” Thor interrupted, his voice near shouting now, punctuated by a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. “What makes that easier is that my  _ sister _ hasn’t yet had the chance to slash out one of my eyes!” This startled Odin enough that some of the anger left his face. “How were we supposed to stop her when you’ve pretended she doesn’t exist for our entire lives?”

“I have pretended nothing.”

“No? Then if I take Mjolnir to the throne room now and hurl it at the ceiling, I would not reveal images of an older, bloodier age beneath the paintings of a peaceful, benevolent Realm Eternal?”

“Asgard is not the same as it was then.”

“You can’t just paint over something you’re ashamed of and pretend it never happened!” said Thor, flinging out his hands.

“And I have not. The new images are as true as the old, and they show what Asgard has become. For the better part of two millennia, Asgard has rebuilt many of the civilizations it destroyed during my father’s reign and the first part of mine. We have only interfered where we were needed. We have built strong ties with former enemies—the Ljosalfar, the Dvergar, the Vanir. And we even have alliances that extend beyond Yggdrasil, where once we thought to lead our conquering armies.”

“That is all very well,” said Thor, “but how did you expect us to rule justly and well if we only knew half of our own history?”

“Can you tell me honestly that I had no reason to fear that learning the truth of Asgard’s conquest of the nine realms might have inspired more pride and battle-lust in you than humility and compassion?” 

Thor had no response to this. Shame pooled within him at the memories of his thoughtless, warmongering youth. He could not say with confidence that growing up with Hela as a cautionary tale would have done him much good.

Odin turned to face the balcony and rested his hands on it.  “After Hela slaughtered the Valkyrior,” he said, “I went to Niflheim to end it once and for all, but I could not raise Gungnir against my own child. Instead, to curtail her power, I erased her from my people’s memory. There were many on Asgard who recalled the age of conquest too fondly and awaited the day when I would restore their crown princess. Without their support, she has never been able to attempt escape again.” He paused. “Perhaps it was fear, not wisdom, that led me to hide her even from you, but I hoped that if I raised you and your brother as differently as I could from how I raised Hela, it would be enough to keep you from becoming like her.”

“Is that also why you’ve never given me full access to my power?”

“Yes,” said Odin. The bald admission took Thor aback. “Power is a seductive thing, and you have more of it than most. My father raised me to believe that whoever had the most power deserved to rule over weaker creatures. It is difficult to see the evils of that reasoning when you have always always been the strongest. That is why I took steps to limit your abilities from an early age.”

“What made you see?” said Loki. All three of them looked at him. He had listened silently for several minutes, and Thor’s focus on Odin had blinded him to his brother’s reactions to everything they said. He still had his arm around Frigga, and he looked paler than usual, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. “Why stop conquering?”

“It was the Aesir-Vanir war,” said Frigga, glancing at Odin, who sighed heavily. “It is one thing to conquer alien realms, but it is another to turn around and conquer the very realm you came from a mere three generations ago.”

“In the beginning,” said Odin, “I believed it would be for the good of Vanaheim to come under Asgard’s rule. We were bringing our cousins into our prosperity, and they would thank us for it.” He laughed bitterly. “The Vanir disagreed, but it wasn’t until I saw Hela using the same brutal tactics against them that she had against less ambiguous enemies that my confidence in the justice of our campaign began to waver. That was also when I met Frigga.” 

He smiled at her, and there was such adoration in his eye that Thor felt slightly embarrassed. 

“King Fjorgynn sent her to negotiate with me, and her passionate arguments for her people built on my growing doubts until I could not pretend even to myself that Asgard was in the right. The war ended with our marriage, but Hela refused to accept it. When she realized that not only would we not be subjugating the Vanir, but we would not be moving forward with any more conquests for the foreseeable future, she tried to usurp me. She killed everyone in the palace that day. When she went for Frigga, I opened a gateway to Niflheim. There she has remained ever since. And yes, I did intend her to remain there after my death.”

Thor’s mind was reeling. All the pieces fit together, but they differed so much from what he had been taught since childhood. Common understanding of the Aesir-Vanir war was that it had been motivated mainly by disagreements over trade. Asgard had never been portrayed as blameless in his lessons, but their role had certainly been downplayed. He would need time to think about everything he had learned. 

“You said you watched all three of us die,” said Frigga, her eyes on Loki. “If Odin’s death released Hela, then was it she who—”

“No,” said Thor. Whatever remained of his anger drained away, replaced by old grief. “You were killed by a Dark Elf four years before Hela’s return.” At a noise of horrified outrage from Odin, he quickly elaborated. “I do not know whether Grandfather lied about their defeat or Malekith fooled him, but they have been lying in wait in their cloaked ships these five thousand years. They attacked when the Aether resurfaced. Loki nearly died avenging Mother, but it was the Mad Titan who killed him, mere weeks after we defeated Hela.”

Odin walked to one of the sofas around the fire and sank onto it, running his hands over his face. Geri and Freki shuffled close to his feet, making soft whimpering sounds, but he ignored them. “Is this the legacy of Buri?” he asked. “Bor’s greatest enemy still lives, the demon that slew Vili and Vé still lives, Hela’s prison will fail, and Thanos returns.” He looked up at Thor. “The Norns must have sent you back to punish me for my failures.” 

Thor held Odin’s gaze. He did not want to offer his father any comfort. These were indeed grievous failings, and he had already lived through their consequences. Perhaps he was a fool, but he hated to see the man he had looked up to all his life so defeated. “Or they sent me back to a time before it was too late to stop them from destroying everything,” he said. “That is why Loki and I went to Midgard, and it is why I want to ally with the Jotnar. With the right help, we can stop these things from happening. But before we can begin any of that, there is still the other secret you kept from us.” 

Odin’s eye widened. Thor looked at Loki, who was now white as a sheet. “You owe Loki the truth. If you will not tell him, I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really interesting chapter to write. Considering how respectful he always is in canon, I didn't expect Thor to be so angry with Odin, and that just kind of happened as I was writing it, which was really intense. It felt a lot like Thor's version of the scene with Loki and Odin in the Vault (except with Mom and little bro standing there watching it happen, obviously). 
> 
> I think when I first thought about how I would handle this scene, I pictured it happening in the throne room, but once I got here, that didn't make sense. Odin just barely woke up, and it's evening. He wouldn't be back on the throne until the next day. That gave me a bit of a problem. I couldn't picture this taking place in a bedroom or a banquet hall, really. Eventually, I came up with this study, which looks really cool in my head. And I added Geri and Freki to it, because I love that Odin has pet wolves. Their names mean "greedy" and "ravenous," which sounds pretty scary on the surface, but it could also just be an exasperated/affectionate reference to the way they're constantly begging for scraps (like how Cerberus is a really intimidating sounding name, but it really just means "spotted one," which is my favorite thing in all of Greek mythology).
> 
> All the stuff about Hela and the Aesir-Vanir war is my headcanon to fill in some of the gaps and explain how Odin went from being a ruthless tyrant to being a benevolent king. Odin is a very complicated character, and I find him endlessly fascinating.


	15. The Final Secret

Loki thought he had already accepted and processed the revelation that he and Thor had a psychotic sister whom they would have to deal with in the near future, but it turned out that she was only the initial loose thread that would unravel the tapestry of everything he had understood about Asgard and the line of Buri. And yet all that buried history _still_ was not the secret his parents had kept from him. What could it possibly be?

“You go too far!” said Odin. His voice seemed to come from a great distance.

“Odin,” said Frigga, “He’s right. We should never have kept the truth from Loki in the first place.”

“We have done that to protect him!”

“Perhaps that made sense when he was a boy, but it has long been nothing but an excuse,” said Frigga. “He deserves to know.” She locked gazes with Odin. Eventually, he was the one who looked away.

“Thor, could you please leave us?” he said.

This dragged Loki out of his disoriented shock, and he stared at Thor. His brother looked extremely reluctant, but was obviously going to obey. “No,” said Loki. The plea came out faint and hoarse.

Thor closed the space between them and put his hands on Loki’s shoulders. “It will be alright, Brother, but you must swear to come find me afterward.”

“I…,” said Loki, leaning back and looking anywhere but at Thor.

“ _Swear it!_ ” said Thor, shaking Loki a little. “Your own thoughts will be your worst enemies, and you should not be alone with them.”

Loki swallowed. “I swear.”

Thor gave him a grim smile and nodded. He glanced once at Frigga, then at Odin, and strode from the study.

“Come here, darling,” said Frigga, and she gently pulled Loki towards a sofa at a right angle to the one Odin had taken. They sat down so that she was on his left and Odin was to his right, more or less facing him.

“What did your brother tell you of this?” said Odin.

“Only that there is some terrible secret you have kept from me.”

“Is ‘terrible’ the word he used?” said Frigga, covering his hand with hers.

“No,” Loki admitted. Hoping to deflect further questions, he threw out one of his own. “Do I have some kind of dreadful illness that even Eir cannot cure?” He did not think this particularly likely. He had been ill more often as a child than Thor or any of their friends, but it had never been serious.

“What?” said Odin. “No, of course not.”

“Then have you limited my power like you have Thor’s?”

“Not in the same way,” said Frigga.

“In your case, it was merely a consequence of your not knowing,” said Odin.

“Then what is it?”

Odin and Frigga exchanged a long glance. Loki had always suspected that his parents did not even need the nameless tongue to communicate privately, and it seemed especially probable now. After several seconds, Frigga squeezed his hand, but it was Odin who spoke.

“As you know, you were born at the end of the war against Jotunheim.”

“Am I about to learn that Asgard waged that war unjustly too?” said Loki, only half-joking.

“No,” said Odin. “The era of conquest disrupted many of Jotunheim’s relations with other realms and certainly contributed to the feelings of hostility between the Aesir and the Jotnar, but war only became inevitable when Laufey set his sights on Midgard.”

“Then what has Jotunheim or the war to do with this?” said Loki, frowning.

“Everything,” said Odin. Loki stared at his father, a horrible ominous feeling creeping over him.

“From the time we were married,” said Frigga, “we always wanted more than one child, and not just as a redundancy for the line of succession. Both of us grew up with siblings we were very close to, and we wanted the same in our household.”

“I have sometimes wondered whether Hela would have been better off with a brother or sister to love and look after from an early age,” said Odin, “but it is obviously far too late for that.”

“We had Thor halfway through the war,” said Frigga. “We never thought a younger sibling would follow so soon, but less than twenty years later, I was with child again. It seemed like a bright light that would carry Asgard into times of peace.” Even though she smiled, there was pain in her eyes as she said it. Loki could not understand it, but it made the ominous feeling intensify.

“I already know all of this,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” said Frigga, “but there is more. Much more.”

“On Jotunheim, Hugin and Munin brought me word of the child,” said Odin. “The news lifted the spirits of Asgard’s warriors, and we pressed on, gaining more and more ground with every battle. We forced the Jotnar back all the way to Utgard. As we laid siege to their capital, our spies learned of the death of Queen Farbauti, along with her unborn child. I was willing to postpone the battle to give the Jotnar time to mourn and honor their queen and royal child, but Laufey wanted none of Asgard’s pity.”

“How did Farbauti die?” said Loki. Even among the long-lived races of Yggdrasil, childbearing was not without risks, but it struck him as suspicious for a queen and her child to die on the eve of the final battle of the war. Loki was bracing himself to learn that it had been the work of an Aesir assassin acting on Odin’s orders to demoralize the Jotnar, so Odin’s answer caught him by surprise.

“According to what my spies overheard, she suffered a miscarriage and subsequently killed herself from grief.”

Now that was interesting. Not an Aesir assassin, then. “You didn’t believe it,” said Loki.

“I had my doubts. Heimdall later confirmed them. There is a curious condition among the Jotnar in which one infant in every several thousand is born months early, already fully developed and capable of surviving outside the womb. These children only ever grow to be the size of an Aesir, but they are blessed with seidr far beyond that of their larger kin.”

“ _Small_ giants?” said Loki incredulously. “I have never heard of such a thing.”

“That is because Laufey has done all in his power to eradicate them since he became king,” said Frigga. As she spoke, Odin got to his feet and began to walk along the edge of the crackling fire pit, his hands clasped behind his back and his brow deeply furrowed. “Perhaps he fears they would ally themselves with beings more their size, given the chance, or that they would use their seidr to overthrow him.”

“So what does he do, have them dropped off cliffs?” said Loki.

“Oh no, he is far too cunning for that,” said Odin, turning and pacing the other direction. “He began simply, by terming these small Jotnar ‘ _skamrbarn_ ’.”

Loki grimaced. The term could be interpreted as simply “short children,” but _skamr_ also meant “deformed” or “mutilated.”

“From there, he spent over a century sowing suspicion and mistrust. By the time Jotunheim’s religious leaders proclaimed that their gods had called for all _skamrbarn_ to be returned to them, lest Jotunheim be struck with a curse, the people most loyal to Laufey were ready to hear it. A few of the small Jotnar succeeded in fleeing Jotunheim before they could be dragged to the temple altars. Brave Jotun mothers and fathers risked everything to send their little ones to Alfheim where they would be safe, but many were captured, accused of heresy, and executed.”

Having grown up with endless feast hall tales of the savagery and brutality of the Jotun armies, Loki was not at all surprised to learn that their king would be so vicious to the most vulnerable of his people, nor that their religious leaders would help him do it, but it was strange to think of Jotnar as capable of feeling the kind of affection for their children that would drive them to risk their own lives to protect them. “So that’s what happened to Farbauti,” said Loki contemptuously. “Her child was _skamrbarn_ , and she killed it and herself for shame.” Had Laufey cursed Odin’s wife and child so that his enemy would suffer as he did, then? Was that the secret?

“No,” said Frigga, and Loki was startled to see that her eyes were full of tears. “Farbauti was a good queen and a good mother. She loved all three of her sons. She gave birth and tried to smuggle the babe out of Utgard, but she was betrayed and discovered by Laufey almost at once.”

“Laufey’s own policies had made his worst fears come true,” said Odin. “His position was already precarious because of the war he was about to lose. Had his people learned that he had produced a _skamrbarn_ while leading them to defeat, then the very same religious doctrines he helped to write would have given them just cause to depose him.”

“Could he not simply denounce the child as a bastard and let Farbauti take the blame?”

“Such a claim would have been too easily disproven,” said Frigga. “The markings on a Jotun’s skin are hereditary. The ones on the face and body come from the mother, but the ones on the arms and legs come from the father.” Her thumb traced chevrons on the back of Loki’s hand as she spoke. “Laufey was the only surviving male of Ymir’s line old enough to father children. The newborn prince’s legitimacy would have been obvious to any Jotun who saw him.”

This information was surprising. Loki’s schooling had not included much about the Jotnar, but he had always assumed the odd lines decorating their bodies were the result of scarification, not genetics.

“He gave the baby to the servant who had betrayed Farbauti, with orders to take him to the closest temple to Asgard’s camp and dispose of him there,” said Odin, who in contrast to Frigga’s sorrow seemed to be growing quietly furious. He had stopped pacing and now gripped the edge of the fire pit tightly enough to leach the color from his fingers, and he spoke through gritted teeth. It must disgust him, as a man who could not bring himself to kill his daughter even after she committed heinous crimes, that another king could discard his infant child without a second thought. “Farbauti tried to fight him, but childbirth had weakened her, and he slew her quickly.”

“Why are we talking of Laufey and Farbauti?” said Loki. This was all very fascinating, but what was the _point_ of it?

“Because it is important context,” said Frigga. “You will understand soon enough.”

“The battle commenced,” said Odin. He returned to the sofa and sat on the side nearest Loki and Frigga. “In my impatience to return home in time for the birth of my child, perhaps I fought more recklessly than I might have otherwise, for Laufey took my eye mere hours before I gained his surrender. But at last, the war was won. I sent the Einherjar to take the Casket of Ancient Winters so that Laufey would never be able to attack another realm, and I secured his, Helblindi’s, and Byleistir’s seals on the truce.”

He closed his eye. “I was weary. It had been a long war, and the Odinsleep was nearly upon me. I wanted a moment of peace and solitude before the return journey to Asgard and the days of feasting and celebration that would follow, so I climbed the steps of the nearest building and went inside.” He chuckled, which in itself was more baffling than anything he had said so far. “I found neither peace nor solitude. It was the temple where Laufey had sent his infant son to die, but the prince was a contrary fellow, and not inclined to obey his father’s wishes. He lay on the stone altar, little fists clenched, cries echoing in the empty hall.”

The sense of foreboding, temporarily forgotten amid the strange history lesson, was back in full force.

“I had learned of _skamrbarn_ by then. Early in the war, I thought to employ some of the surviving adults living on Alfheim in my army, but they would not return to Jotunheim, lest they endanger their families. I knew the child had been left to die, but differences in Jotun markings are subtle, and I was not proficient at recognizing their patterns. I did not yet know who he was, or I may have broken the truce before the ink on it was dry. He was the same size as the son I would soon be holding for the first time.” There was a crack in his voice, and a soft sound from Loki’s left had him looking around to see that his mother was weeping. Geri and Freki whined and put their heads on Odin’s lap.

“When I picked the child up, I did so thinking to deliver him to Alfheim to be raised with the other small Jotnar, but then he did something remarkable. He smiled at me, and he shifted his form from Jotun to Aesir like it was as simple as drawing breath. I could hardly believe it. He was only an infant, starving, helpless, and abandoned, and instead of crying for food and comfort, he performed the kind of magic that takes most seidmenn and seidkonur centuries to master. It was as if he was seeking to impress me. As if he already trusted me to take care of him.”

As he spoke, Loki was finding the task of drawing breath progressively less simple. It was the same rare ability he prided himself on. Large as the study was, he felt as though the walls were closing in on him.

“I thought no more of Alfheim after that,” Odin went on. “I bundled him in my cloak and returned home with my armies. I have never been skilled at illusion magic, but I was able to do enough to hide him until I reached the palace. I told myself it would be very simple. The timing was perfect, after all. I would introduce the child to Frigga, and she would agree that we would raise him as our own...” His eye met Loki’s. “...as the twin to our second-born.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously things didn't quite go according to Odin's brilliant plan. :(
> 
> Coming up with three different ways to do a "Loki learns about his true heritage" scene is interesting. I wasn't sure I'd be able to avoid recycling lines. Fortunately, I'm not settled on my precise headcanon for the circumstances of Loki's adoption. I'm very firm on three things: 1) Laufey actively tried to get rid of Loki, he did not just misplace him, 2) Odin adopted him primarily out of affection, not some strategic plan, and 3) baby Loki shape-shifted himself, it wasn't a spell Odin cast on him. But there are still plenty of variables to work with. Chiefly, what's the deal with Loki being Aesir-sized, and why has Asgard never questioned the parentage of the second prince? (Because there's no way Loki wouldn't have heard rumors about Frigga's lack of pregnancy, if such rumors existed.) I've picked different answers to these questions in each fic, and I don't think I have a preference. This option does stand out for making me cry the most, though. 
> 
> Aside from those variables, there's also who's telling the story and when. I've written a version where Frigga tells Loki as a kid and a version where Odin tells Loki several decades earlier than in canon, and now we've got the Odin/Frigga tag-team at about the same time as canon. It ended up feeling like a hybrid of the other two, which makes sense. 
> 
> Anyway, how do you guys think it's going compared to the canon timeline so far?


	16. Baldur

The grief coming off both Odin and Frigga was palpable. It made Loki feel alienated from them—but no, grief wasn’t to blame for that, was it? He simply _was_ alien. He tore his gaze away from Odin’s and tried to pull his hand from Frigga’s, but she held fast. Would she still if he transformed? Would she keep clutching him even as her skin blackened with frostbite?

“It was not to be,” said Odin. His voice was rather hoarse. “Heimdall told me who the Jotun child was and why he was in that temple, but he had scarcely finished his account before he turned his eyes to the palace. I knew something was wrong. When I arrived in the royal apartments, Frigga was in labor.”

“It was so different from Thor’s birth,” said Frigga. Her voice was surprisingly steady, though tears continued to fall. “I could hardly feel the baby moving, and the pain was far greater. After hours and hours, it was finally over. Eir did all she could, but though the child was born alive, he was still slipping away from us. He wouldn’t cry or eat or open his eyes. We held him and named him, and he was gone within the hour. Then I heard a sound that tore my heart. A baby crying in the room.”

“I dispelled the illusion and explained my plan,” said Odin, “though by then I had little hope that Frigga would accept it. I was preparing myself to part with a second child in a single day, and I did not know how I would bear it. That was foolish of me. I should have learned better than to underestimate my queen.”

There was a long pause. Loki thought he might be sick. His insides roiled—but they weren’t truly his insides. This wasn’t his true form. He’d put on a mask when he was an infant and didn’t know better. His whole life had been that mask. Little wonder he had failed to guess the secret. How could he have imagined that they would allow a Frost Giant to parade about, thinking he was a prince of Asgard? It was so ludicrous that he felt a mad desire to laugh.

“Then I am the changeling child who slept in your true son’s crib and stole his life and name,” he said.

“You stole nothing,” said Odin.

“Should we have preferred an empty crib to one with you in it, just because it was meant for another?” said Frigga. “Should I not have nursed you at my breast?”

Loki had no answer to that, but it still made no sense.

“We wanted both of you,” said Odin. “When I watched you and Thor playing or training together, I often imagined the third boy who could have been there. I did not picture him in your place, nor resent you for being the survivor.”

“Baldur,” said Frigga. “That was the name of the child we lost. Your name has always been your own.”

“Why does Asgard not know of him?” said Loki.

“To be a monarch is to have one’s life constantly on display,” she said. “I could not bear the thought of thousands of people coming to see me to give their condolences. Because of you, we had a chance to keep Baldur and our grief private, and so we did.”

“And you didn’t tell Thor?”

“How does one explain to a toddler that the younger sibling he was so eager to meet is gone, and that his new brother is someone else altogether?” said Odin. “He had no concept of death or that not all children are raised by those who bore them. When we introduced you to him, he was delighted. We chose not to jeopardize the bond the two of you formed.”

“A wonder that you trusted me to be near him at all,” said Loki.

“Oh? Should we have feared that you might murder him in his sleep?” Odin’s tone had grown very dry. “Is this an ambition you have secretly harbored all your life?”

“We were born enemies!” said Loki, incensed. “Why would you take that risk?”

“If birth was enough to determine that much, then Hela would long have been queen of nine miserable realms, and likely many more besides.”

“And as the man who taught her how to conquer worlds,” said Loki, “do you really expect me to believe that naught but compassion and generosity motivated you when you saw an infant _Frost Giant_ with powerful seidr and decided to bring him here and name him Odinson?”

“Did I say those were my only motives?” said Odin. “Of course I thought about the implications of bringing you here, particularly once I knew who you were. Of course I considered the political benefits of keeping you. Of course I considered the uses to which I could put you. You were never going to be _just_ a son, any more than Thor, or Baldur if he had lived. You have always known this.”

“But why?” cried Loki. He was suddenly on his feet, facing them. “You speak as though my being Jotun made no difference to you, but you had just fought a war against them!”

“We did not fight them for being Jotnar,” said Odin.

“There are many on Asgard who would,” Loki countered. “Thor most of all, before his time travel adventure.”

“And that is a fault of Asgard and myself, not a condemnation of the Jotnar. I am glad that Thor is wiser now.”

He was so calm. He had shouted at Thor, had wilted under the weight of the past he had kept hidden. He had wept for Baldur and snarled over Laufey, but now he was as stoic as when he sat on the throne. Loki wanted to scream at Odin and make him scream back. Instead, he forced himself to be just as calm. “Why would you take the unwanted wretch of your enemy into your own home?” He rounded on Frigga. “Why would you agree to such a mad scheme? Your kindness is lauded across Yggdrasil, but surely there is a limit.”

Frigga stood and cupped Loki’s face in her hands. He met her eyes unwillingly. “Laufey may not have wanted you, Loki, but you have _never_ been unwanted. You were a child without a mother, and I was a mother who had lost her child. You rescued me from my despair. There was nothing I could do to save the child I bore. In all my life, I have never felt so powerless. But you were dying too, and I _could_ save you.” She smiled through her tears. “My sweet boy. How could I do anything else?”

Her image blurred, and Loki realized that he was crying as well. She wrapped her arms around him. He hadn’t been aware of how rigidly he’d been carrying himself, but now he sagged against her.

“Do you think the love of a parent is something one must earn?” said Odin. The emotion in the question made Loki look around at him. He sounded afraid, and he looked like he’d been struck in the face. “Have I failed _all_ of my children?”

These questions fell on Loki’s ears like words from the nameless tongue when he was not the audience. All his life, he’d wanted nothing as badly as to make his father proud—a desire he had apparently had since infancy. If he was not Odin’s son, not even Aesir, then that goal had never been within reach at all, and his efforts had been for nothing. So how could Odin be acting like _he_ was the disappointment, not Loki?

Frigga guided him back to the sofa. He didn’t really want to be in the study anymore, but he didn’t fight her.

“Were you ever going to tell me if Thor hadn’t forced your hand?” he asked. He felt hollowed out and numb.

“We agreed we would tell you before we began considering betrothals or you entered into a serious courtship,” said Frigga. “I wanted to tell you centuries ago.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“I could name you one of my heirs,” said Odin, “but I could not make my people forget thousands of years of ill feeling towards the Jotnar. You were an innocent child, not one of the soldiers who slew their fathers or brothers, but that is not what they would have seen. We wanted to shield you from their prejudice.”

That might have been comforting if he hadn’t already been an object of suspicion and distrust for his talents with seidrcraft and his determination to pursue them above any other subject. It had been easy enough for him to make friends among fellow students of magic on Alfheim and Vanaheim, but his friends on Asgard were Thor’s friends first, and if they wanted to be near Thor, they had no choice but to be near Thor’s brother.

“You were also in terrible danger,” Odin continued. “Your survival is the greatest threat to Laufey’s rule, because you are the proof of his crimes against his own people.”

“Then why not use me to finish him? If he is such a villain, why settle for a mere truce and leave him on the throne of Jotunheim?”

Odin was staring at him with the same sadness from a moment ago. “Perhaps that would have been the prudent course to take. It may even have been just. But it would have made you the target of Laufey and all who were loyal to him, and that I could not do.”

X

It was a rare thing for Thor to desire solitude, but he was only just managing to keep his emotions from spilling out into the weather, and his friends, mortal and Aesir alike, were better off without his brooding presence.

He went back to the balcony where he had stood with Loki before Hugin and Munin’s arrival. More than any other place on Asgard, Thor was glad that his mother’s garden had a second chance to escape Ragnarok. Most of his earliest memories involved playing there with Loki under Frigga’s watchful gaze. She had showed them how she cared for each species of plant and told them stories about where they came from. As they grew up, Loki spent more time there than Thor did. Thor wondered whether Loki, while pretending to be Odin, had maintained the garden. He hadn’t taken the time to look at it before going to confront him. He supposed he would never know.

“You do not laugh as often as the Thor I remember.”

Thor smiled and looked around at Sif. “I wish I could.”

She joined him before the balustrade. “I heard the storm earlier.”

The smile faded. “I was...more upset with my father than I realized.”

“With your father?” she said. She frowned. “Did the things you lived through happen because of him?” She sounded as though she was afraid to hear the answer.

“Not entirely, and not by design.” He grimaced. “Perhaps it would be better if they had been. He hid things from me and from Loki. I think he was trying so hard to protect his sons that he forgot to trust us.”

Something flickered in her expression that Thor doubted he would have noticed before. “You don’t think Loki would deserve that trust,” he said quietly.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but she held his gaze with a mixture of shame and defiance. “If I don’t, it is not without reason.”

It was true that Sif and Loki had a long history of getting on each other’s nerves. Thor hoped he had not merely imagined that there was also genuine affection there, somewhere. “Has he ever failed you or me or our friends when we needed him? I know he plays his tricks and calls us all fools, but we were never innocent victims, and he’s saved our lives at least as often as any of us have saved his.”

“You are probably right,” she said grudgingly, “but I can never tell what he is thinking! He’s always up to something. I don’t know how it doesn’t drive you mad.”

Thor grinned. “Perhaps I simply enjoy surprises better than you. Or...have a better sense of humor?”

She punched him on the arm, looking amused against her will. “Perhaps.”

He rubbed the spot, chuckling, until she fixed him with such a serious look that he ceased all fidgeting at once. “ _You_ trust him, though?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “He’s my brother.”

She nodded. The skepticism from before seemed to be gone, but only time would tell whether that meant he had persuaded her to abandon it or she was simply being more guarded. Putting the Avengers together from scratch might prove far easier than what he had to do at home. “Will you need us tomorrow? We are still ready to do whatever we can to help you prevent Ragnarok.”

Thor smiled his gratitude. “There is still much planning to be done, but I will send for you when we are ready to act.”

She touched his arm below where she had punched him, then turned and left the balcony. Thor watched her go until the hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood up. He raised his eyebrows and faced the gardens again. “How long have you been there, Loki?”

Loki materialized to his right. “Longer than Sif would like.”

“They told you, then?”

“They told me.”

“And...you are well?”

“I’m not going to hurl myself into space, at any rate.” He looked sideways at Thor. “You’ve been trying to soften the blow all week, haven’t you? With your talk of fighting alongside the Jotnar.”

“I also meant it. If a Jotun can grow up on Asgard without him or anyone else ever noticing he isn’t Aesir, then how different can we really be?”

“I was still never like the rest of you, as Sif so kindly illustrated.”

“Are all Jotnar bookish, sarcastic types who turn people into animals when they’re bored?” said Thor. Loki only glared at him. He grinned back. “I’m surprised you want to be like the rest of us. Wouldn’t that have been dull?”

“You’re the best of everything Asgard prizes, and it always came naturally to you. Nobody ever seems to find _you_ dull.”

“And it went straight to my head and made me an arrogant fool who would start a war over a single insult,” said Thor. “I can’t even imagine what a horror I would have become without you to humble me every once in a while. I probably would have been Hela all over again.”

“Yes, as humble as you are now, you’ll soon have no more need of me.”

He said it lightly, but it cut into Thor like a dagger. “I don’t know.” Thor tried to match Loki’s tone. “I think I have enough of an ego to last at least another four millennia easily.”

The corner of Loki’s mouth twitched. He stared at Thor for a long moment. “It really doesn’t change anything for you, does it?”

Thor clasped the back of Loki’s neck. He couldn’t even remember the first time he’d done that. “It never did.”

Blinking rather rapidly, Loki puffed out his cheeks and let out a breath. “I haven’t just been knocked on the head and hallucinated all of this, have I?” he complained. “I mean, I’m adopted, and have four siblings I never knew about. It seems rather excessive.”

Thor started to laugh, before frowning. “Wait, four? I thought Laufey only had two other sons.”

Loki shot him a confused look. “He...does.” His eyes went very wide. “Oh.” He gave a sympathetic grimace. “They didn’t tell you about Baldur.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I love Thor and Loki's sibling relationship, I'm kinda sad that Baldur doesn't exist in the MCU (and I know it's spelled Balder in the comics, but I prefer the spelling that isn't also a word for more hair loss, deal with it), so I decided to inflict that sadness on this fic. Yay?
> 
> Okay I don’t think I’m ever going to get tired of the dynamic between Loki and Odin. There’s all kinds of metas on tumblr and fics on here about what an abusive father Odin was and how he deliberately pitted Thor and Loki against each other, and while I don’t think canon disproves any of that, it has only ever seemed like one possible interpretation to me. What I see, on the other hand, is two people who have been talking at cross purposes for a thousand years. Odin rewards Loki’s achievements with chuckles and nods because he views this as the secret connection he’s had with Loki since he picked him up in that temple. He saved the more open praise for Thor and Loki together because he was proud of them both AND he wanted them to be a team, and he was open in praising Thor because Thor was open in his expectation of it. Everything has been going great from Odin’s perspective. But baby Loki needed more than Odin’s smile on Jotunheim to survive, and as a boy, an adolescent, and a young man, he’s needed more than Odin’s smile to feel validated. One thing I’m sure Thor and Hela had in common was being very quick to voice displeasure or unhappiness when they were children. This made them easy for Odin to understand. But Loki would pretend to be content and bottle things up until his frustration came out in seemingly unconnected ways, and Odin never quite figured it out. Odin might also have felt that it was fine to focus on Thor as long as Frigga focused on Loki. 
> 
> Anyway, the initial conversation might be over, but the angst is not. 
> 
> I adore Sif and would totally cosplay as her if I had black hair (it's blonde, so I cosplay as Éowyn, Luna, and Spider-Gwen instead), but of all Thor's friends, she is plainly the one with the biggest Loki issues. Let's see what we can do about that.


	17. Rain and Snow

Thor felt numb as he listened to Loki’s explanation about their brother. It was different than any of the other losses he’d experienced. Each time he believed Loki had died had been a devastating blow. Arriving too late to save Frigga from the Kursed had made him feel more powerless than a mortal. Finding Odin on Earth only to lose him moments later had left him disoriented and angry. Hela had just been another foe. He regretted the position she’d forced him into, but the loss of Asgard hit him far harder than the loss of the sister who’d killed so many of his people and his friends.

He didn’t know what to feel about Baldur. Anger that he had never known about him? Shame that he had never sensed the absence? Grief for the life Baldur had never lived? Despair that he represented one more way their family would never be whole, no matter what Thor changed? He tried to reconcile this new knowledge with his memories of childhood. Had Frigga ever hidden a tear as she watched two boys playing instead of three? Had Odin? Had Thor ever noticed and asked about it, only to be told a comforting lie that he never questioned? He couldn’t remember. 

“I should go to Mother,” he said after Loki fell silent. Whatever he felt, she had been grieving for over a thousand years, and he had never shared that with her. That, at least, he could fix. But he hesitated, looking at Loki. 

“Go,” said Loki with a wan smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll still be here in the morning.”

Thor gritted his teeth and pulled Loki into as fierce a hug as he’d ever given him. One thing he knew already: this was the brother he could save, and no power in the universe would stop him. It took a moment for Loki to return the hug, but it nearly matched Thor’s for strength.

X

Frigga was in her weaving room. When Thor entered, she turned to smile at him from her loom, and he saw the telltale signs of recent weeping on her face. The sight was enough to burst a dam within him that he never knew he’d built. His throat constricted and his vision blurred. Neither of them said a word, but seconds later, they were in each other’s arms, and he was sobbing unrestrainedly into her hair.

X

After Thor’s departure, Loki went to his chambers in the royal apartments, but with his mind so full of everything he had learned, he didn’t even try to sleep. Instead, he sat on his windowsill, idly tossing and catching a dagger as he looked out over Asgard, not really seeing it—though that would have been difficult through the heavy sheets of rain coming down. A pressure was building in the back of his thoughts like an itch, and he would have to scratch it soon, but it couldn’t quite drive everything else aside yet. Hela. Baldur. Farbauti. Laufey. 

He thought about them, and he thought about less tangible things. Everything he had ever assumed he was entitled to because of his birth was only his as the result of a heinous crime, a staggering coincidence, and a charitable impulse. It had already happened, so why did knowing about it make him feel as though he was dangling from the edge of the world? So many aspects of his life had been defined by being a son of Odin and Frigga. How much of him was real if that wasn’t true? But then, how untrue was it if the lack of shared blood meant nothing to Odin, Frigga, and Thor?  _ Did _ it mean nothing? What made the bonds of family if not blood? He could answer these questions no better than he could tell Tony Stark what made magic work. 

Loki fought his curiosity as long as he could, but it was barely an hour before he was standing in front of his washroom mirror, attempting to brace himself for when the pale blue eyes looking back at him turned vivid red. This was the final lie to strip away. 

Undoing the first bit of magic he ever performed should have been as simple as getting undressed, but the harder he tried, the more he felt a force pushing back. His shapeshifting abilities had never failed him, and he had never experienced anything like this. Something was blocking him from returning to his true form. He had a strong suspicion as to what it was, but the idea of confronting Odin about it was not inviting. So he thought of how he might get around the block without him.

The answer was obvious.

X

So much had happened that it was hard for Thor to believe that it hadn’t even been twelve hours since Director Fury entrusted him and Loki with the Tesseract. He felt much calmer after visiting his mother, but he still doubted he would be able to sleep if he tried, and he didn’t want to crowd Loki too much, so instead he went to see how his friends fared. 

A servant informed him that Lady Sif and the Warriors Three had left the palace and Darcy had already retired to her rooms. Unsurprisingly, the scientists were all in the library. He passed Banner and Erik having an animated discussion at one of the tables, but Jane was standing beneath the miniature, slowly revolving Yggdrasil with her mouth slightly open, a stack of books clutched in her arms.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. “This was always my favorite part of the library. When we were boys, Loki often teased me for staring at it and fantasizing about the adventures I would have on other worlds instead of studying the words of the books in front of me.”

“It’s incredible,” said Jane. “This whole place is incredible. I must’ve pinched myself a hundred times, and I’m still not convinced it isn’t a dream. I don’t even know where to begin with my research here.”

“You will have as much time as you like to decide,” said Thor, smiling.

Her own smile faltered as she looked at him. “Hey, um. Is there a reason you always seem sad when you’re around me?”

He laughed and grimaced. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.” He teetered briefly on the verge of telling her everything, but pulled back. It was his problem, not hers, and she was so happy here. “It isn’t you. It’s been a rather complicated week for my family. Not long ago, I learned about my father’s daughter from a previous marriage whom he imprisoned because she wants to conquer the universe, Loki’s adopted and didn’t know about it until tonight, and we just found out we had another brother who died the day he was born.”

“God, I’m sorry,” said Jane. They started walking in the direction of Banner and Erik’s table. “I found out when I was in eighth grade when we did Punnett squares and blood types in science class that my dad’s not my biological father, and my mom doesn’t even know the name of the guy who got her pregnant. That was definitely a complicated week, but yours sounds worse.” 

“I think it will be alright. All the secrets are out now, so we’re on even footing.” Unlike himself and Jane. 

“That’s good,” said Jane. “You know, in such a big universe, it’s a statistical impossibility that Earth is the only planet with living organisms, which is why I’ve always believed aliens existed. But I never really thought it through far enough to imagine aliens with family drama. Is it mean to say that’s reassuring?”

Thor laughed again, this time without the grimace. “I don’t think so. We have more in common than we think, no matter what worlds we come from. It’s something I wish I had realized earlier.”

X

Loki had been moving about the palace undetected (and many places far more distant) for centuries, so making his way to the lowest level was quite simple. Barely a quarter of an hour after leaving his chambers, he was slipping through the golden doors of the Vault. He eased them shut and dropped his cloaking spell.

“You have come sooner than I expected.”

It took him every ounce of self-control not to jump out of his skin. He was such a fool. He should have realized the absence of guards at the door had been no accident. He turned reluctantly to face Odin, who was standing beside the plinth that held the Casket of Ancient Winters. “You knew I would come.” He was tense, ready to flee back through the doors, but Odin seemed relaxed, if in a heavy, burdened sort of way.

“It must have frustrated you when you could not transform, and only two solutions would have presented themselves. I can see why the Casket would hold greater appeal than speaking with me after tonight.”

Loki did not at all like being predictable, but it was better than being suspected of having some nefarious motive. He was a Frost Giant sneaking into the Allfather’s Vault, after all. He would not have been surprised if the Destroyer had attacked the second he set foot inside. He walked slowly down the stairs and past the other relics until he was nearly level with Odin.

“You blocked me from changing back.”

“Yes.” 

“Why?”

“One night during your first winter on Asgard, Frigga found that you had reverted to your true form in your sleep. A reaction to the cold, I suppose. Remarkable, how instinctive you have always been with your seidr. You turned Aesir again when she picked you up. We couldn’t risk it happening around anyone we didn’t trust, so I cast a spell to block that particular transformation.” He looked over at Loki for the first time. “Now that you know the truth, it has outlived its purpose. I will lift it, if you ask it of me.”

Loki wanted to ask it, and yet he didn’t. He had wanted to get the whole thing over with in secret, and while he wasn’t happy to have his powers restricted by a spell, he also wasn’t sure he liked the idea that he might revert to Jotun form inadvertently without that spell in place. “You wouldn’t think me disloyal?” he said. 

“Is it disloyal to be curious about your origins, your natural appearance, how it feels?” said Odin.

Loki closed his eyes. “Perhaps not.”

Odin moved a step closer, frowning. “Why do you brace as if for a blow every time I speak? What is it you expect to hear?”

The rebuke  _ “No, Loki.”  _ from Thor’s memories echoed across Loki’s mind, and he saw his own hand releasing Gungnir. “I don’t know,” he said. It was true. He didn’t know any of the details surrounding that moment, and it had already been thwarted. Here he stood two full days past when that ought to have happened, still on firm ground. And yet it needled at him. How could he be sure he would not earn that rebuke again? What if that was the one thing that Thor couldn’t change? 

“I do want you to lift the spell.” He said it more to break the silence than anything.

Odin nodded and clasped the back of his neck as Thor often did, then laid his right hand over Loki’s heart. Loki felt something hot beneath his skin. Odin pulled his palm back, drawing his fingers close together. The hot sensation gathered to a point before a string of golden runes emerged from the front of his surcoat where Odin had touched him. They floated out a few inches, shattered into sparks, and disappeared. 

“It is done,” said Odin, releasing Loki and stepping back.

Loki waited to feel different, for his flesh to crawl as it recognized its own wrongness. Nothing happened, so he probed inside himself with his seidr. After a moment or two, he found something like a knot of magic. He had never noticed that before. It must be his spell. He gave it a tug, just to test it, but it unraveled. At once, the cool air became sweltering against his skin. He hadn’t meant to do it right here in front of Odin, and his eyes flew open in panic. He immediately had to squint against what had previously been dim light. He looked down at his hands. They were blue, with dark nails and lines that decorated the flesh and disappeared beneath his cuffs. His breaths came faster and his heart pounded. “Father?” The word escaped him without his permission, and he hated how much he sounded like a frightened child.

“I’m right here.” Two crimson eyes met one blue. Concern creased Odin’s brow. “So much fear. You don’t need it. Whatever form you take, you will always be Loki Odinson.” 

The words were like a lifeline, and Loki clenched his jaw in an effort to keep his composure.

“I have learned far more about being a father by raising you than I ever did from Hela or Thor,” said Odin. “However, it seems I was still an inattentive pupil. I would like to do better. That is the other reason I came here to head you off.” 

“What?” said Loki.

“The Casket,” said Odin, gesturing to the relic beside him. 

Loki looked at it, intending only a brief glance, but with his new eyes, he suddenly saw so much more than a glowing blue box. It was as if it held every winter storm that had ever blown inside it. The colors were vivid and distinct, and there was sound as well, ranging from the tinkling of ice crystals to the groans of massive glaciers. Everything he had ever heard about the Jotnar, their assault on Midgard, and the war had led him to expect that there could be nothing good or even neutral about their powers over ice. When Odin had brought him and Thor to the vault as boys, he had thought the swirling lights in the Casket seemed angry and trapped. But now he could feel that power washing over him. He felt it in the markings in his skin, like tingling lines of ice. It was not savage or violent, but invigorating and peaceful. It was like encountering some unfathomably vast creature and finding that, instead of seeking to crush him between two fingers, it only wanted to hold him in its palm and keep him safe from destructive heat. 

“It’s yours.” 

Loki tore his gaze from the Casket to gape at Odin. “Mine?”

“It has sat in this vault for a thousand years, harming no more of Laufey’s would-be victims, but doing no good either. I think it is time that changed, particularly if there is to be a true alliance with Jotunheim.”

He patted Loki’s shoulder and began to walk back towards the exit. Loki remained rooted to the spot, completely overwhelmed. 

“One more thing,” said Odin from somewhere close to the door. “Your mother made an excellent suggestion after you left the study. In the morning, if you are agreeable, I would like to send a messenger to Lord Freyr and Lady Gerd on Vanaheim to invite them to Asgard.”

Loki’s brow furrowed in confusion, and he turned to stare at him. “Why?” He had met Lord Freyr before, of course. He was Frigga’s second cousin and one of the more powerful Vanir nobles, but Lady Gerd, his Ljosalfr bride (whose beauty he never ceased to speak of), had always been something of a mystery. 

“Because Lady Gerd is not from Alfheim originally. Like you, she is Jotun. I’m sure you have many questions, or you will soon. The palace library is somewhat deficient in the subject of the Jotnar, and while your mother and I and Lady Eir have learned as much about them as we could for your sake, I fear we are poor substitutes for one with first-hand experience.”

Loki was once again at a loss. When Odin had described the refugee  _ skamrbarn  _ living on Alfheim, he had pictured them as objects of pity, tolerated but not welcomed. But at least one of them had been raised to a high enough position on Alfheim to catch the eye of a Vanr lord. 

It seemed he had much to learn. “Thank you,” he said. “I would like to meet her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was harder to write than the last few because it's tricky to figure out where to go next in such a loosely planned story after such huge emotional beats. I felt kind of deflated for a few days. But I really liked the idea of pairing off the family members who didn't get to interact as much. Thor and Frigga, Loki and Odin. And also to see how differently Thor, the extrovert, handles the aftermath than Loki, the introvert. Thor seeks out his friends, whereas Loki seeks solitude. 
> 
> I was surprised again by the intensity of Thor’s emotions. His scenes were the last ones I wrote, and initially I thought he’d go hug Frigga and cry a bit over what could have been with the brother he never knew. But just like his anger, he’s been sitting on a whole boatload of grief, and the Baldur reveal tipped it all over the edge. Which made me cry a lot while I was sneakily writing this at work. Heh. 
> 
> I was most excited about doing sort of a reverse Vault scene for Loki and Odin, and I’m mostly happy with how it turned out. It fought me a lot and I had to rearrange some pieces. It’s so much harder to get Loki and Odin to emote than Thor and Frigga, and that makes it a lot harder for them to see how much they matter to each other. But Odin got a pretty clear idea from the last chapter that he’d screwed up, so now he’s trying to fix it, and he’s managed to close off a few more of the avenues Loki could take towards self-loathing and isolation.
> 
> We'll probably start getting back into the plotty stuff now. Will it be Hela, Dark Elves, or Jotunheim first?


	18. The Vanr Lord and His Lady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, I really shouldn't have complained about the previous chapter. This one was way harder to write, because I had to get the pieces moving for the next arc now that the drama and feels have died down a bit.

The next day was a busy one. Whatever awkwardness might have lain over the House of Odin under the circumstances could not hold against the sense of purpose and determination that united them. They had work to do.

In the council chambers, the four of them stood like the points of a compass around the console that projected a miniature Yggdrasil into the air. Unlike the one in the library, this wasn’t merely decorative, but could be manipulated and magnified. It was most often used to plan battle strategy or new trade routes. Thor relied on it extensively to illustrate as he recounted everything he knew about Malekith and Thanos. His father, mother, and brother listened intently, interrupting him only to ask for clarification at certain points. Later, there would be meetings with Odin’s council, but only after they settled on a narrative that wouldn’t cause undue alarm.

After a while, Thor noticed that his father seemed particularly focused on those two villains. He had, in fact, been the one to open the discussions on them. However, he had yet to mention their other problem. So Thor decided he would do it for him. “What are we going to do about Hela?” he asked.

All eyes turned to Odin. He didn’t return their gazes, but silently stared at a spot in Yggdrasil’s roots. Thor reached for that spot and expanded it until they could see a bleak asteroid belt that revolved around a particularly remote star.

Niflheim.

“It may be possible to strengthen her prison,” said Odin.

“And if it isn’t?” said Thor. “We wouldn’t know for certain until after your death, and if she still managed to escape, Ragnarok would be unavoidable.”

Odin closed his eye. “You’re telling me I must choose between allowing the destruction of my kingdom and murdering my only daughter.”

Thor held up his hands. “Give me a third option.”

Odin had no answer. He knew Thor was right. Thor glanced at Loki. He was looking covertly at Odin, but Thor was caught by his expression. It was the sort of look that made it hard to blame Sif for thinking that he was always up to something. He wasn’t sure that boded well.

“Let us not speak of Hela for now,” said Frigga gently. “There is time.”

“Very well,” said Thor, suddenly glad for the excuse to change the subject. “When it comes to Thanos, our first priority should be to fortify Nidavellir.” He flung up a hand to make the miniature Yggdrasil back away from Niflheim so that he could find the speck of light he wanted and expand it instead. “If he cannot press Eitri into making that thrice-damned Gauntlet, he’ll not be able to use the Stones together even if he acquires them.”

“Agreed,” said Odin.

“Would he not simply seek an alternative?” said Loki.

“He will not wish to settle for an inferior weapon,” said Odin. His expression was grimly satisfied. “Not when his prototype Gauntlet has sat in my Vault since we last met.”

“With the Bifrost intact, will he risk an assault on Yggdrasil at all?” said Frigga.

“He has the Mind Stone already,” said Thor. “If he succeeds in finding Power and Soul, or even just one of them, he may feel confident enough to do more than wait in the shadows, even against an Asgard at full strength.”

They spent the next half hour or so discussing how they could increase the protections around Nidavellir. Then they turned to the subject of the Dokkalfar. Odin placed a hand on the console, and golden sparks swarmed up out of it to form a miniature Heimdall. He put fist to heart and bowed his helmeted head to Odin. “Heimdall,” said Odin. “Have you any news of Malekith’s ships?”

“No, my king,” he said. “I have looked all along the route from Asgard to Svartalfheim and elsewhere. There is no sign of them.”

“It was always unlikely we would find them so easily,” said Thor, trying not to feel too disappointed. “They couldn’t have remained hidden for an entire lifetime if it was as simple as looking.”

“What cloaking spell could remain so strong for five thousand years?” said Odin.

Frowning, Loki touched the console. In addition to the interactive map of Yggdrasil and communications, it was also linked to all of Asgard’s archives, dating back to the reign of Buri. Above the image of Heimdall, Loki conjured scenes from the Aesir-Dokkalfar war. It only took a moment for him to isolate Malekith’s flagship. The battle around it vanished, leaving the intangible craft revolving slowly above them, a sinister black cross with gleaming red lights.

“Of course,” said Frigga.

“What?” said Thor and Odin together.

“The Aether was in Malekith’s possession long before Bor took it. Malekith may not have achieved his final objective, but he had time to study it and use it to build a fleet of perfect stealth ships.”

“Is there no way to penetrate the illusion?” said Thor.

“Perhaps if we had the Aether,” said Heimdall.

Thor shook his head. “Even if we could find it, disturbing it would only wake the Dokkalfar and ruin our advantage.”

“What about another Infinity Stone?” said Loki. He held up a hand, and the Tesseract appeared in it, casting its vivid blue glow over them. The movements were so similar to when he’d traded it for Thor’s life on the _Statesman_ that Thor flinched.

“If one Infinity Stone could be used to find its fellows, then Thanos would already have them all,” said Odin.

“That may not be true,” said Thor slowly. A grin was spreading over his face as an idea sparked in his mind. There was one man who could trace an Infinity Stone using another, and it wasn’t Thanos. “Perhaps he simply lacks the right PhDs.”

X

Thor and Loki found Banner in his new laboratory (a spacious room one level down from his sleeping quarters, which Loki had filled with everything he’d taken from Dr. Sterns). He was trailing behind Birgir Halvarson, one of the servants who oversaw guest accommodations, as the lad explained how to use the Asgardian technology. Birgir noticed the princes first, and he sprang to attention, smacking fist to heart so quickly that they could hear the _thunk_ all the way from the door.

“Excuse us, Birgir,” said Loki. “We need to borrow your charge for a moment.”

“Yes, my prince,” he said, and he bowed to each of them and left the room.

“Nice kid,” said Banner.

“He’s seven hundred years older than you,” said Loki, amused.

Banner grimaced. “Did...uh...you guys need something?” He said it politely, but he seemed a bit nervous and reluctant.

“Yes,” said Thor, happy to be able to offer Banner a chance to prove himself powerful and useful without the Hulk. “We need your expertise.”

“My expertise?” said Banner, reluctance replaced with confusion. “I barely know how to operate your refrigeration systems.”

“Asgard’s technology is far more advanced than what you are accustomed to, yes,” said Loki, “but it relies rather heavily upon magic. In this particular case, that may be a hindrance. Birgir and others will help familiarize you with everything, and when you are comfortable—” He paused and produced the Tesseract again, then placed it into one of the gold containment fields positioned around the laboratory. “—we hope you will be able to devise a means of tracing the energy signature of an Infinity Stone for us.”

“One of the most dangerous threats against both our worlds once had access to a similar power source,” said Thor. “While they had it, they used it to build a fleet of ships that cannot be detected by any Asgardian means. We need to find them before they awaken from their stasis and attack.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll see what I can do,” said Banner.

“We will supply whatever materials and equipment you need,” said Loki. “If you think it will be easier to use some Earth technology, perhaps Director Fury can be persuaded to supply it. And you can of course work with Drs. Selvig and Foster.”

X

Lord Freyr and Lady Gerd responded to Odin’s invitation at once. They had not been expecting it, but they were family, if of a distant sort, and they were undoubtedly curious.

In the evening, Loki rode out with Thor to the Observatory to greet their guests, as they usually did for visiting nobility. Thor had been just as surprised to learn that Lady Gerd was Jotun as Loki had been, but he had recovered quickly and declared his eagerness to finally meet his cousin’s wife. He spent much of the ride, once they were clear of the city and any curious ears, musing about what advice Lady Gerd would have about improving relations with Jotunheim and how quickly Loki would learn how to use his latent Jotun abilities. Then he strayed off-topic as he imagined aloud how the two of them could combine their abilities to summon a thundersnow storm of epic proportions.

Loki let Thor prattle on, feigning irritation even though he was secretly amused. He hadn’t had much time to think about Lady Gerd since Odin voiced his intent to invite her to Asgard, but he couldn’t deny that he was nervous. The only Jotnar he had ever met were the three he had lured to the Vault to disrupt the coronation, and he hadn’t exactly enjoyed any pleasant chats with them. Towering over him in that dark, frozen place, barely clothed and hairless, their scarlet eyes alight with greed when he told them how to reach the Casket, they had seemed to match every tale he had heard as a child of dull-witted, monstrous brutes. How much of that had been him seeing what he expected to see and how much was reality? To know for sure, he would need to meet more Jotnar raised on Jotunheim, but Gerd was certainly a start.

The Bifrost activated just as they neared the Observatory, but they were still yards from the entrance and hadn’t dismounted yet when a magnificent palomino came charging out, its very young rider laughing and whooping. The boy couldn’t be more than two centuries old. The pointed tips of his ears poked out from between wild, white-blond curls. He wore a very fine tunic and coat, and a large silver pendant bounced off his chest with each stride of his horse, which ran past Heimdall and burst out onto the bridge, nearly spooking Gladr and Lettfeti.

Two more horses followed before Thor and Loki could so much as exchange bewildered glances. They veered around Heimdall and chased after the first horse.

“Fjolnir, get back here this instant!” shouted the rider in front. She greatly resembled the boy, though her pointed ears were rather longer, as was the elaborately braided hair flying behind her, and her face was flushed with mortification rather than excitement. She, too, wore a heavy silver pendant. “This is not how we greet our hosts!”

“But it’s _Asgard_ , Mama,” said the boy, pouting as he reined in his horse. “I’ve wanted to come here for _ages_.”

“That’s no excuse to forget your manners,” she said sternly. The impact of the chastisement was somewhat ruined by the fact that both Thor and her husband, a broadshouldered man with curly red hair and beard, were doubled over laughing. Even Heimdall was chuckling behind them in the Observatory.

Loki forced himself to recover from his shock at how _normal_ she seemed—and with a child!—so that he could address her. “Lady Gerd, as you can see, we take no offense,” he said. “We well remember what it was to be young boys on an adventure.”

“Yes, it is an honor to meet you both, and to see you again, Cousin,” said Thor.

Lord Freyr grinned. “You as well,” he said. “Prince Thor, Prince Loki, allow me to introduce my beloved Gerd, and our son Fjolnir, who is very keen to be on a realm other than Vanaheim or Alfheim for the first time in his life.”

“You are the princes?” said Fjolnir, his eyes very round.

“We are,” said Thor. “And if this is your first time on Asgard, I think that calls for something special. How would you like to get a better view?”

“A better view?” he said, cocking his head.

“Yes,” said Thor. “Instead of riding all the way to Gladsheim on your horse, I could fly you there with Mjolnir.” At an apprehensive sound from Lady Gerd, he hesitated. “If your mother agrees, that is.”

Fjolnir bounced in his saddle. “Can I, Mama, please?” He stuck out his bottom lip and looked at her beseechingly with his large, innocent eyes.

“Oh, very well,” she sighed, but her hand shot out to grab Thor’s arm, and she fixed him with such a glare that he gave an audible gulp. “If he comes to _any_ harm, Odinson, I will make you will rue the day you were born.” Behind her, Freyr was grinning—at least until she glanced over at him, at which point he hastily adopted the demeanor of a funeral attendee.

“Not to worry,” said Loki, who was more successful at keeping a straight face. “Thor has been known to carry mortals around when he flies, and even they have lived to tell the tale.”

“I’m not sure that’s helpful, Brother,” Thor muttered.

“Go before I change my mind,” said Gerd.

Fjolnir cheered and jumped down from his horse. Thor dismounted Gladr and scooped the boy up with his left arm, instructed him to hold on, then spun Mjolnir and flew off. He went at a considerably slower speed than what the hammer was capable of, but Fjolnir shrieked with laughter, and Loki, Gerd, and Freyr all watched until they were just a speck in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check it out, an almost functional House of Odin! I'm so proud of them, guys. 
> 
> It's been the plan for a while that Bruce would be instrumental in helping find the Dark Elves, but when I thought about the logistics, I realized that it's actually canon that Bruce is capable of tracking Infinity Stones based on their gamma signature. That's what he does in Avengers. He finds the Tesseract based on its similarities to the Scepter (and, more specifically, the Mind Stone), which is something even Thanos didn't seem to be able to do. Now all Bruce has to do is take that a couple steps further and find ships that were built using the Reality Stone that have been sitting in one place for thousands of years. Tall order, maybe, but he's got better gadgets to work with here. Also, it's never stated in The Dark World that the Dark Elves built those ships using the Aether, but the lights on them are exactly the same shade of red, so it seemed like a very small logical leap given what they're capable of. 
> 
> I basically came up with the idea of including Freyr and Gerd as I was writing the previous chapter, and at that point, I didn't plan on giving them a kid. But I was researching them for more ideas on how to portray them, and I found out that a historical/mythical king of Sweden around the time of Alexander the Great was, according to legend, the son of Freyr and Gerd. So hey there, adorable child Fjolnir! 
> 
> Probably my favorite parts of this chapter are Thor acting like a big kid. More so than usual, I mean. The big family chat went well and Loki's okay, so he's feeling pretty happy on the whole right now.
> 
> I'm really excited to get farther into this arc, because I had a whole bunch of new ideas for it in the last week or so, and it should be really fun, but first there will be at least one more chapter focusing on Freyr, Gerd, and Fjolnir.


	19. Kinship

As Freyr and Gerd’s servants and belongings had arrived earlier, Thor’s departure with Fjolnir left Loki alone with them and the two riderless horses. Loki very much doubted that Thor had done this deliberately, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take advantage of the situation. “You responded very quickly to my father’s invitation,” he observed as they rode towards the city. “I would love to know what he said to inspire such haste.”

“Simply that it was high time our families met properly,” said Freyr, “and that he feels we are uniquely positioned to advise him on strengthening the bonds between our realms.” It was the answer Loki had expected. Odin would hardly have sent a messenger to directly ask for a Jotun sorceress to come answer his adopted Jotun son’s questions about their species.

“Yes,” said Loki, “I daresay at least three realms could benefit from your visit.” He glanced casually at Gerd.

She met his gaze unflinchingly. “As such, it is long overdue, wouldn’t you agree?”

“You think it worth pursuing, then?”

“What could be more worth pursuing, Prince Loki?”

“What indeed.” He glanced at the silver pendant she wore and noticed the delicate Ljosalfar script etched into it. “That is a fine necklace. I noticed Fjolnir wears a similar one.”

“Yes,” she said, touching her fingers to it, “They contain locks of my parents’ hair. We aren’t able to see them as often as we’d like, but this way we are able to keep them with us.”

Ah, so that was how Gerd and Fjolnir achieved their Ljosalfr and half-Ljosalfr appearance. Many who lacked Loki’s talent for shapeshifting relied on bespelled objects rather than investing the time it would take to master the difficult spells on their own. A lock of hair was an essential ingredient for imitating a person’s likeness. How clever to use hair from two people. Instead of assuming the identity of an individual existing Ljosalfr, Gerd actually looked like the offspring of the couple who had adopted her, and her son shared the same visible traits, mixed with those he had gotten from Freyr. The Ljosalfar had always had a knack for such innovations. Did all the other _skamrbarn_ wear similar trinkets, or were they only made for the ones who left Alfheim?

X

That evening, thousands of Aesir who lived in the city feasted at the palace, celebrating the end of another Odinsleep and honoring Asgard’s guests. Fjolnir ran between the long tables of adults with a pack of giggling boys that included Leif Volstaggson while his parents conversed politely with several nobles and council members. At the other end of the high table, the four mortals drew quite a crowd of curious people, mostly not of the nobility—with the exception of Fandral, who was again flirting with Darcy.

Feasting inevitably gave way to dancing, which lasted for hours and grew predictably raucous as the mead continued to flow. Thor remained at the high table, watching with an ache in his chest as his people and his friends enjoyed themselves, his own lighthearted mood from earlier in the day completely gone. This night could not have been more different than the way it had played out in the original timeline, where it had been the night of Loki’s premature funeral. Whispers had flown in every direction about what had led to his death and why there was no body in the longboat, and most of the so-called mourners seemed more concerned about the destroyed Bifrost than by the loss of their prince. One man had been fool enough to suggest within Thor’s hearing that he had slain his own brother when he refused to surrender the throne. Thor had broken his jaw. He’d wanted to do far worse. He couldn’t even remember what that man looked like now, but he was likely somewhere among the dancers.

He was shaken out of these unpleasant recollections by the sight of Loki, Sif, and Volstagg approaching from the crowd.

“Come, Brother,” said Loki, “even Mother and Father are dancing. The longer you sit here like this, the more people will think you are sulking over missing out on the regency.”

“He’s right,” said Volstagg, whose second and third-youngest children were dangling off him. “You should be merry! It is a fine night, and all is well on Asgard!”

Sif cut straight to the chase by seizing Thor about the wrists and hauling him out of his seat and towards the dance floor. He let her do it, and a moment later, they were all dancing in the circle that included Volstagg’s wife, one or two of Lady Eir’s apprentice healers, and a tipsy, grinning Erik. Thor’s spirits were soon buoyed up as he clapped and followed the steps. Why should he sorrow over things that hadn’t and wouldn’t come to pass? There was so much still to do, but perhaps, one day, those eight years would feel like little more than a bad dream.

X

Freyr, Gerd, and Fjolnir joined the royal family for breakfast the next morning. Fjolnir insisted on sitting between Thor and Loki, who were happy to oblige him, with Odin and Frigga on either side of them across the circular table from each other, and Freyr and Gerd opposite their son.

While the adults ate, Fjolnir bombarded Thor with questions about what his hammer could do. The moment he had realized that it shared all but one letter with his own name, it had become his favorite topic of conversation. Thor indulged him, entertaining him with a few stories of enemies he had faced with Mjolnir. Loki only half listened, shooting glances at his father every few minutes. They had discussed what would happen at this meal, and the urge to leave a projection in his place and flee was strong.

“Ask him about the time he rescued your Aunt Freya from an unwanted suitor,” said Freyr.

Thor cracked a grin. “Have you never told him that tale? You were there too.”

“I thought I would save it,” said Freyr. He looked at his son. “A century or so before you were born, Freya and I went on a long hunt in the wilds south of Honir. We passed a little too near the territory of a tribe of hill giants, and Thrym, their chieftain, caught sight of her. He decided she would make him a fine wife and sent his soldiers to capture her.”

“Fortunately,” said Thor, “Loki and I were on Vanaheim to visit our cousins at the time, and we fought Thrym’s minions back easily. _Un_ fortunately, we celebrated a little too much afterward, and Thrym succeeded in stealing my hammer.”

“The hammer you had been given less than a year prior,” Frigga muttered.

“Yes, so I could hardly go back to Asgard without it,” said Thor, “especially with Thrym using it to make even more trouble for Honir. He demanded Freya as his bride or he would destroy the entire city.”

“What did you do?” said Fjolnir, hanging on every word.

Thor glanced at Loki, who returned his grin despite his mounting nerves. “Well, you see, after our first skirmish, Thrym became very cautious, striking the city at unexpected times, never giving us much of an opportunity to attack, and carefully concealing the locations of his camps. Loki came up with a rather devious plan to draw him out.”

“You did?” said Fjolnir.

“Well, Thrym wanted Freya, so I suggested we give her to him. Or allow him to think so. What he got instead was Thor in her wedding gown.”

Gerd choked on her drink while Thor and Freyr laughed. Frigga and Odin both looked simultaneously amused and exasperated. Fjolnir only frowned at Thor. “But you don’t look like Aunt Freya at all.”

“Does he not?” said Loki. Fjolnir turned his frown at Loki before looking back at Thor and giving a start, because in his place sat Lady Freya in a rather lovely wedding gown.

“I think that will do, Brother.” Thor’s normal voice issued from the illusion as “Freya” rolled her eyes, and Fjolnir dissolved into a fit of giggles, his parents both laughing heartily. Loki snickered into his goblet and lifted the spell.

“We prepared a magnificent wedding feast,” said Freyr. “Thrym brought most of his men along, all heavily armed, so perhaps he suspected something.”

“The wedding proceeded to the point of the exchange of weapons,” said Thor, “which put Mjolnir back in my hand. Loki dropped the illusions and I challenged Thrym to battle. If he won, he could keep Mjolnir and try his luck with Freya. He was so furious that we tricked him that I don’t know if he heard me, but he and his men attacked. We fought, and we won. I had my hammer back, Freya remained happily unmarried, and Honir was safe at last.” Thor clunked his goblet against Loki’s and drained it.

“You’re so lucky you have a brother,” said Fjolnir, looking back and forth from Thor to Loki with an envious pout.

“I certainly think so,” said Thor. Loki rolled his eyes.

“My friend Jarl back home has _two_ brothers,” said Fjolnir, “and I met a boy yesterday with four brothers and three sisters!” That would be Leif. There were few families on Asgard as large as Volstagg and Hildegund’s. “Mama, Papa, you should have another baby so I can have a brother.”

“We’ll work on that right away,” said Freyr with a saucy smirk at his wife.

“And what if the Norns decide you should have a sister instead?” said Gerd.

Fjolnir wrinkled his nose. “Could I still play with her?”

“Of course you could,” said Freyr.

“And when she grew big enough,” said Gerd, “you could teach her to ride her horse and help her practice her spells.”

“That wouldn’t be _so_ bad,” said Fjolnir, as though this was a great concession on his part. “But I would rather have a brother.” With that, he dug into his breakfast.

Odin and Frigga chuckled along with the boy’s parents, before Odin gestured to the servants standing around the edges of the room to leave them. Loki’s heart began to pound. The moment was nearly upon him. Freyr raised his eyebrows. “Are we discussing matters of state already?”

“Perhaps those boys from last night are nearby,” said Gerd, starting to stand. “I’m sure Fjolnir would much rather play with them than listen to such dull adult conversation.”

“He should stay,” said Loki. His mouth was very dry. He clenched his hands beneath the table to keep them from trembling. “This concerns him too, somewhat.” He looked directly at Gerd. “How old were you when you left Jotunheim?”

Her eyes went wide, and Freyr leapt to his feet so quickly that he sent his chair flying, moving to stand in front of her, eyes darting to each of them before settling fearfully on Fjolnir, who still sat between Thor and Loki.

Loki continued as if there had been no disturbance. “I learned recently that I left when I was but two days old.” Their guests froze. He could feel Fjolnir’s confused eyes on him.

“Freyr, your family is in no danger here,” said Frigga. “Please sit.”

Gerd laid a hand on her husband’s arm, and he reluctantly righted his seat and reclaimed it. “What do you mean?” she asked, looking at Loki.

Loki glanced at Odin, who nodded and raised the fingers of his right hand an inch or so, causing curtains to drop over the windows and the fires to dim, leaving the room in semi-darkness.

He reached for that knot of seidr again and tugged. The room was suddenly warm and appeared brightly lit. “Some of us don’t require the use of an enchanted pendant to hide it.”

Gerd gaped at him in utter shock, and he could feel the stares of everyone else on him too. He couldn’t help seeking Frigga’s gaze. She was beaming at him, and she reached for his hand. He didn’t have time to whip it away, but though there was a pronounced temperature difference, her skin did not burn when she touched him. Fighting back tears of relief and grateful that he was already sitting down, Loki turned to look at Thor, whose eyes traced the lines in his flesh with fascination but not the slightest hint of hostility. Had he never seen him like this in the other timeline?

“You’re like me?” said Fjolnir. The boy wore the same look of pure wonder he’d given Thor a few times. Loki nodded, unable to speak around the lump in his throat.

Fjolnir shot an imploring look at his mother. Loki looked at her too.

“You can take it off, darling,” said Gerd. She reached for the fastener to the silver chain around her neck and released it, then set the pendant on the table before her. The moment it parted company with her skin, deep, icy blue blossomed across her. Her long, pointed ears shrank until they were hidden by her hair, which turned from white-blonde to fully white, and her leaf-green eyes became scarlet. Freyr took her hand and twined his fingers through hers. His skin didn’t burn either. The flowing dress she wore left her arms bare, so Loki could see the coiling patterns in her skin—very different from the sharp angles of his own. The marks on her face were more similar, but not quite the same.

Beside Loki, Fjolnir had also removed his pendant and set it on the table. Being half-Vanr, his transformation wasn’t quite so dramatic. His curly hair also became white and his ears lost their pointed tips, but his skin was a much paler blue and only his irises turned red. The markings on his face were identical to Gerd’s, but what little was visible of his arms and hands past the ends of his bunched-up sleeves was smooth.

“To answer your question,” said Gerd, “I was born in a remote part of Jotunheim, and my birth parents were able to hide me for several years. I have a few vague memories of them. Happy ones.”

“But it didn’t last,” said Loki.

“It couldn’t,” she said. “Eventually, the danger of keeping me with them became greater than the risk of smuggling me to Alfheim. I do not know if they still live, or if I have siblings. If I do and they were _skamrbarn_ too, they never reached Alfheim.”

“Perhaps you will soon be in a position to find out,” said Thor.

“This is the true reason we invited you to Asgard,” said Odin. “It is not Vanaheim or Alfheim we wish do discuss, but Jotunheim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the heck, this chapter was hard to write too! It didn't really help that things got busier at work. And then I watched Crimson Peak for the first time and have become mildly obsessed (entirely aside from the appeal of another tragic Tom Hiddleston character, it's like if every single gothic novel on the reading list of my graduate class on gothic fiction were condensed into an absolute visual feast of a film). Also I've gotten over my Artist's Block a bit, so you guys might be getting a 7-page comic about toddler Thor and baby Loki being adorable soon. :D
> 
> I wish we'd gotten more Asgard between the three Thor movies, so I try to give it as much character as I can when I write big public scenes like the banquet. It seems like family is a big deal on Asgard and there aren't as many formalities dividing the different classes from each other, which is why the royal family can throw a big, boisterous feast and dance inside the palace, and there are kids running around all over the place. 
> 
> As much fun as it would be to see Chris Hemsworth's Thor in a wedding dress and trying his hardest to act like a blushing Vanr bride, realistically, unless Thrym was super blind, he wasn't going to fall for anything less than one of Loki's illusions. 
> 
> Okay, I have some fun ideas about Loki's Jotun lessons with Gerd and Fjolnir, so that's probably what's coming up next.


	20. Jotun Biology 101

“Alright,” said Gerd. “Show me what you know of frjosleikr.”

Loki didn’t ask what frjosleikr was. He could guess based on its similarities to words for magic and freezing that it was the Jotnar’s name for their cryokinetic abilities. He fidgeted with his hands, distracted by the texture of the lines etched into his skin. “I’ve never actually used frjosleikr before,” he said.

“Never?” said Fjolnir, shocked.

The three of them were standing in the middle of the largest bath chamber in the palace. Round pools of varying temperatures were sunk into the floor in a circle and one smaller raised basin of cool water stood at the center. Heavy curtains had been drawn over the windows so that the only light came from braziers. To an Aesir or Vanr, the room was dimly lit and comfortably warm, if extremely humid. To the two and a half Jotnar, it was bright and almost suffocatingly hot. Thor and Freyr stood near the door, backs to the wall, chatting and laughing together, Freyr idly twirling Gerd’s and Fjolnir’s pendants around a finger. Frigga had promised they would not be disturbed until she personally came to fetch them for a meal.

“Unlike you, I only just found out I’m Jotun, so I haven’t had much opportunity to practice.”

“All the same, I’d like to see what you can work out on your own before we show you anything,” said Gerd. “Instinct plays a large role in frjosleikr.”

Perhaps it wasn’t so different from seidr, then. Loki looked down at the water basin between them and imagined the contents freezing solid, then laid a hand flat over the surface and willed it to become ice.

Nothing happened. Loki frowned. He’d heard countless stories from the older Einherjar that a Frost Giant could freeze anything with a single touch, and he’d seen plenty of the frostbite scars that proved it. He’d been relieved beyond words to find that such an effect wasn’t automatic enough to make physical contact dangerous to the people he loved, but now he was getting annoyed.

“No, like this,” said Fjolnir after about a minute of nothing. He touched one finger to the surface of the water, and ice crystals spiked and swirled across it almost instantly.

“Fjolnir, let Prince Loki try,” said Gerd, laying her hands on his shoulders.

“Sorry, Prince Loki,” said Fjolnir. He withdrew his hand but bounced slightly where he stood, clearly bursting to get to the fun part.

Some of the water at the top of the basin was still liquid, so Loki tried again with that. He didn’t know what Fjolnir had done that was different, but he thought he’d seen him inhale as he touched the water. Loki did the same, breathing in slowly while trying to imagine the molecules slowing and locking into crystalline form as the heat left them. His eyes flew open. The water around his fingers had not frozen, but he was sure he’d felt it drop in temperature by at least a few degrees.

“A start,” said Gerd. “Describe your thought process.”

“I willed the heat to leave the water,” said Loki.

“And go where?” said Gerd.

Loki blinked.

“What do you know of our biology?”

Loki was surprised to feel his cheeks warm. “Very little,” he admitted. “There are some books on the subject,” which he knew because said books were currently stacked on the desk in his chambers, awaiting his perusal, “but I focused my studies elsewhere.” What he was less willing to admit was that he had never thought the Jotnar worth his time. All he’d believed he needed to know was how to defeat them if he ever met them in battle.

If Gerd was offended by his unnecessary ignorance, she hid it well. “You know Aesir biology, though?”

“Of course,” said Loki.

“Your knowledge is not _entirely_ lacking, then,” she said with a faint smirk. “Fjolnir could not exist if we were not more similar to the other races of Yggdrasil than we are different, after all. There are, however, a number of ways in which Jotnar are unique. The most important is the source of our frjosleikr. Fjolnir could have been born without it, but he was lucky.”

She ruffled her son’s hair, a twinkle in her scarlet eyes, and he looked rather pleased with himself as he grinned up at Loki. What a marvel was the House of Freyr. Partly to spite the other timeline, Loki was striving to believe that being Jotun did not make him inherently lesser, but he doubted he would ever be able to consider himself _lucky_ to have been born what he was.

“Heat is far too scarce to waste on Jotunheim, and life forms native to the realm have a number of adaptations in order to function at extremely low temperatures. For us, these include glands that secrete a substance to lower the freezing point of our blood, which is where we get our coloring. Other races leak their heat like sieves, but our skin traps nearly all of it inside, which is why we are so cold to the touch.”

“Then how are we not already dead of heat stroke just by standing in this room?” said Loki. If they retained all of their own body heat, it shouldn’t be possible to introduce additional heat without significant problems.

“Because of the bruni-magi,” said Gerd. Loki nearly jumped when she reached across the basin and jabbed his midriff at a point about halfway between his naval and his ribcage. “It is an organ that collects excess heat and converts it into usable energy, located between the stomach and the liver.”

“Ah,” said Loki, “then I should have been trying to draw the heat from the water inward.”

Gerd smiled. “You are clever. Yes.” She reached for the water, and did a slower, more exaggerated movement than Fjolnir had as she touched it, and Loki could see that she while she was inhaling, she was also contracting all of her abdominal muscles. More of the water froze.

Loki reached down and imitated her movements, and this time he closed his eyes and imagined drawing the heat to him with the motion. “There it is,” said Gerd. “Pull the heat in. You will be able to feel it the more you do it. Like a fire inside you.” There was a sensation not unlike drinking hot cider, except that it trickled up his arm rather than down his throat, before pooling at a spot near where Gerd had poked him.

“You did it!” cried Fjolnir excitedly. Loki opened his eyes and saw that there was indeed a thin patch of ice beneath each of his fingertips. Fjolnir leaned to the side so he could see Freyr around Loki. “Papa, Prince Loki made ice!”

“Well done,” said Freyr. “What excellent teachers my wife and son are!”

“Loki was always the better student of the two of us,” said Thor.

“You say that as though you were ever much competition,” said Loki, torn between embarrassment at being praised for so small an accomplishment and satisfaction that he had at least worked out how to do it.

“Now,” said Gerd, “we can only draw heat in up until a certain point. After that, you must release it or risk a frjosleikr fever, which can be deadly. You will know when you are close to danger.”

“How do I release it?” said Loki.

She smiled again and drew her hand up above the partially frozen water. The ice followed her motion and reshaped itself into the figure of a horse. Fjolnir had started bouncing again. Gerd splayed out her fingers and the figure disintegrated into glittering frost powder.

“So...we can digest heat and turn it into energy for magic?” That was...remarkably efficient.

Gerd nodded. “What does it feel like now?”

Loki frowned. He hadn’t realized it until she drew his attention to it, but the hot cider sensation wasn’t quite the same now. “It’s like...a coiled spring,” he said slowly. Completely different from the way seidr felt. He also noticed that he was more aware of the ice they had made, even what was left of the frost. He could see the patterns in it, and he had the sense that there was something more just out of his reach. With seidr, he could have moved the ice anywhere he wanted it to go, but he wasn’t sure what to do with the new source of energy.

“That’s frjosleikr. Most Jotnar’s bodies are able to use the energy from heat for normal biological functions, and only the excess is available for frjosleikr, but there are mutations that block the production of the enzymes that facilitate the energy conversions. The result is—”

“ _Skamrbarn_ ,” Loki realized. “We only have the enzymes for frjosleikr, which accounts for our height.”

“Precisely.”

“Does the reverse ever happen?”

“It does,” said Gerd. “They are called _mikillbarn_.” The term connoted power and strength, not just great height, so Loki could already guess how such Jotnar were perceived. However, Gerd’s brow creased with sympathy as she spoke of them. “They are even more rare than we are, at least as adults.” She touched the water again, and as it hardened, three little ice figures rose up out of it. One was barely an inch tall, the next was about two inches, and the third was at least three inches. “Their size considerably shortens their lifespan, and they cannot leave Jotunheim at all or they would fatally overheat within hours.” The largest ice figure crumbled. “Normal Jotnar can tolerate higher temperatures for perhaps a few days before succumbing to deadly fevers.” The second figure followed the first, leaving the smallest standing alone on a thin plane of ice. “We _skamrbarn_ can survive away from Jotunheim indefinitely as long as we don’t overexert ourselves.”

Perhaps that was why the refugee _skamrbarn_ were safe on Alfheim—not just because they could survive in its climate, but because larger Jotnar could not safely pursue them. It also explained why Laufey had never been able to make another assault on Midgard. Without the Casket, his armies would wither and die there.

“What happens when we do?” he asked. “Is it like seidr exhaustion?”

Gerd shook her head, her eyes wide. “If only it were. I would rather have seidr exhaustion for a month than a frjosleikr fever. It is absolutely miserable. Be very careful how hard you push yourself.”

Loki nodded. He wondered what Stark would make of this. In ten minutes, he’d gained more technical knowledge about how Jotun magic worked than he’d learned about seidr in his entire life. He was going to have to rectify that. The work of a scholar was never done.

“Well,” said Gerd, suddenly very businesslike. “You understand the basics now. I think another test is in order.”

Loki concealed his alarm. “What sort of test?”

“As I said, frjosleikr is largely instinctive. What better way to test one’s instincts than to be thrown into a situation where they are needed? There will be time to teach you the eighteen crystalline structures of ice, how to control lattice size and texture, and how to discover the ideal shape of your _fetils svell_. For now, your task is to land one snowball strike against Fjolnir.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Loki, but his words were drowned by a jubilant war-cry from Fjolnir. The boy plunged his hand into the basin, then pulled it out a second later clutching a perfect sphere of snow, which he pelted straight at Loki’s face.

Loki didn’t even have time for an indignant reaction. Fjolnir was giving no quarter, and Loki took another two snowballs to the ear and shoulder before he could so much as duck behind the basin. It was so ridiculous that he couldn’t be angry, even though Thor and Freyr were now laughing so hard they had to hold onto each other to stay on their feet. “You treacherous little fiend,” said Loki, his tone more complimentary than accusatory, “you knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

“Yep!” said Fjolnir without the faintest hint of remorse, popping up around the side of the basin and letting fly snowballs four and five. Loki threw up a cloaking spell without thinking and sent two simulacra in different directions to cover his retreat.

“Hey!” shouted the boy. “No seidr! We’re practicing frjosleikr only!”

Gritting his teeth, Loki uncloaked, but he didn’t need to dispell the simulacra, as Fjolnir had already done so with more snowballs. He succeeded in dodging the next one to come his way, but his failure to retaliate was giving his foe time to stockpile ammunition and take careful aim.

Loki threw himself to the ground in a roll past the next snowball and stuck his hand into the nearest bath. It was far hotter than the water in the basin, and the heat shot through him with such intensity that it left him gasping until it settled in his stomach—or his bruni-magi, he supposed. It definitely felt like a fire now, which quickly became a buzzing tension, less reminiscent of a coiled spring than of a hive of swarming bees. It all happened in mere seconds (during which he was struck with at least three more snowballs). He tried to send the writhing energy back into the ice to make one of his own. The ice did change shape, but only into an irregular lump, still made of solid ice. He scowled. How in the Nine was he supposed to do this while under constant assault? It wasn’t that the snowballs hurt—they didn’t even feel colder than his skin—but he couldn’t concentrate at all with them constantly raining down.

X

When Frigga opened the door of the bath chamber to invite her sons and cousins to the midday meal, the sudden chill stole her breath away.

“Ahahaha, I am the Snow King!” a young voice roared. “All princes of Asgard and lords of Vanaheim shall tremble before me!”

It took a few seconds for Frigga’s eyes to adjust, and when they did, it was difficult not to burst out laughing. There was very little liquid water left in any of the baths, and it looked like the room had been hit by a blizzard. Fjolnir stood atop a battlement of snow on the far side of the chamber, tall pyramids of snowballs stacked on either side of him. Thor and Freyr crouched behind a much less impressive wall of snow not far from the door. They were both completely soaked, and when they turned to look at her, their grinning faces were bright pink from the cold. Gerd sat primly on a chair made of ice, completely untouched by the fearsome battle.

Frigga took a few more steps forward, and Loki came into view where he was lying sprawled out at the bottom of the nearest bath, breathing hard, caked in snow and partially buried in pieces of ice in various lumpy shapes. He looked sullenly up at her. He had been struck by so many snowballs that they had freed his hair from its usual slick confines, leaving it sticking out in the kind of untamed curls he had not allowed since he was old enough to dress himself. Now was probably not the time for another attempt to persuade him that they were very handsome curls.

“How go the lessons?” she asked.

“Poorly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...can you tell I was a biochemistry major before I switched to English? :D
> 
> Okay, I didn't really expect ALL of the extensive headcanons I painstakingly came up with about Jotun biology to come out in the dialogue this chapter, but I clearly underestimated how nerdy Loki and Gerd are. Whoops. Hope you found it interesting. I took some inspiration for the idea of the bruni-magi (which translates to heat-stomach from Old Norse) from AtLA, when Uncle Iroh explains that the stomach is the sea of chi. I decided to give the Jotnar a more literal version of that. A stomach that digests heat. That would be a pretty remarkable thing, because usually heat is the byproduct of chemical reactions and ends up as wasted energy. 
> 
> Fjolnir is a fearsome snow warrior and I love him. If it wasn't clear from what Frigga found when she arrived, Thor and Freyr couldn't resist joining in the fight once there was enough snow for them to use. They are wonderful childish dorks sometimes. Or all the time. (Freyr and Gerd are meant to be in their species' equivalent to their mid-thirties, while Thor and Loki are in their early twenties.)
> 
> Once again, my estimations of my own fic's pacing were off, but this time I'm almost positive we've only got one more chapter with prominent roles for the House of Freyr until the next arc kicks off properly. This stuff about Loki's Jotun lessons is all sort of a transition between two arcs, so it isn't always as fun to write, but this chapter gave me a lot of cool ideas to use in what's coming next, so I'm psyched.
> 
> Oh! I almost forgot! I totally did finish that 7-page comic about little Thor and Loki. It's over here: http://taaroko.tumblr.com/post/183535078491/made-a-comic-out-of-a-headcanon-i-have-about-thor


	21. Distant Fronts

One of the first things Thor had done after learning to fly with Mjolnir was to satisfy his own curiosity about what was on the underside of Asgard. He had been shown many images of it by his tutors as he sat through lesson after lesson on how King Buri had built the realm and how it differed from natural planets, but he still wanted to see it for himself. He had flown out to the edge and past it, then down and back through the curtains of falling water to the great mountains of crystal that rose many times higher than Gladsheim. Gravity was much weaker on that side, but it was strong enough for several more tenacious plant species to cling to the crevices between rocks, and he saw a few birds making their nests amid the coiled roots and branches. 

While Banner, Jane, and Erik studied the Tesseract in hopes of making a device that could locate the Dokkalfar army and Loki continued his frjosleikr lessons with Gerd and Fjolnir, Thor made the trip to the underside of the world again, this time for a different reason. Instead of gazing mesmerized at the dazzling crystal formations, he looked down past Asgard into the star-speckled blackness of space. 

No matter how carefully he looked, however, he could not find what he sought. The maelstrom of a portal that had brought him, Banner, and the Valkyrie to Asgard should have been easily visible from here, and yet it did not seem to be there. How could that be? 

Disgruntled, he flew back topside and made for the Observatory. 

“Did you enjoy the view?” said Heimdall as he stepped inside.

“Not as much as I would have if I’d found what I was looking for.”

Heimdall raised an eyebrow.

“You haven’t noticed a portal leading to Sakaar from Asgard, have you?” Thor asked.

“No.”

“It’s massive. You can’t miss it if it’s there.”

“Then it is not.”

Thor deflated.

“What business would take you to a world so far beyond Yggdrasil’s branches?”

“Nothing urgent,” said Thor. “Just a friend I was hoping to meet a little sooner this time around.”

Heimdall inclined his head. “If a portal appears, I will be sure to inform you, but such things do not generally form on their own.”

“Thank you, Heimdall.” Thor left for the palace, disappointed. With his brother and many of his friends so occupied with important tasks to which he could offer no help, he had been entertaining a half-formed notion of flying through that portal, finding the Valkyrie and perhaps Korg and the other pit fighters who had so nobly died defending the  _ Statesman _ during Thanos’s raid, and bringing them back to Asgard. With Mjolnir in hand and knowledge of Sakaar’s portals, he had imagined such a trip might take him no longer than a day or two. But if the portal he wanted to use wasn’t even there… Sakaar was about as far away from Asgard as any known system—well beyond the limits of the Bifrost’s reach. Traveling that far with the Tesseract would be a simple thing, but he didn’t want to remove it from Asgard now that it was here. 

It would be difficult to justify a trip to Sakaar if there wasn’t an easy way to get there, but he supposed he would have to resign himself to waiting. Valkyrie wasn’t going to drink herself to death within the next eight years, but he hated the idea of leaving her in that miserable drunken stupor any longer than he had to. 

When he reached the suite of chambers that had become the laboratory of the human scientists, he found the three of them explaining what looked like a schematic to Vidar, one of Asgard’s foremost engineers. He had initially been skeptical about working with mortals, but he would do whatever the security of the realm required without complaint. It likely also helped that the humans no longer looked so out of place, as they all wore Asgardian clothing and had grown less awkward in their new surroundings over the last few days.

Vidar straightened and put fist to heart at the sight of Thor, and Banner, Jane, and Erik all smiled at him. “Hey, how’s it going?” said Banner.

“Very well,” said Thor. “And for you?”

“I’m still not used to being free to make whatever I can think of without having to write pages of grant proposals before I can start working and making do with a limited budget when one finally gets accepted,” said Erik. 

“We’ve drawn up some designs we can start working on,” said Jane. Here, she nodded at Vidar. “But...we might have a problem.”

“What’s that?” said Thor.

“You want us to track down something that was made with an Infinity Stone over five thousand years ago, but the only thing we have to give us an idea of the type of energy signature we’re looking for is a different Infinity Stone that we’ve never studied,” said Banner.

“We can look for anything with a matching signature,” said Erik, “and Asgardian technology will make it simple to extend our search by light-years more than what we could do with Earth technology, but if the stones are different, it won’t be much better than flying into space at random and hoping we happen to bump into the ships.”

Thor frowned. “Is there nothing Asgard can provide to solve this problem?”

Vidar shook his head. “I can help them build whatever they design, my prince, but finding the Dokkalfar fleet is already beyond our capabilities.”

“We get that it’s too dangerous to do anything with the other Stone until after you deal with these Dark Elf guys,” said Jane, “but maybe if we had something that was made using it?”

“If the Stone itself has been missing for five millennia, that might be pretty hard to find,” said Banner. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Thor. “Would an entire battlefield of downed Dokkalfar ships suffice?” They all stared at him, so he elaborated. “Svartalfheim is a dead world; the ships that fell haven’t been touched since the war, and they’re exactly like the ones we’re looking for.”

A grin broke out over Jane’s face. “That—yeah, I think that would do it,” she said.

“Great!” said Thor. “Anything else?”

“If we could see how an Infinity Stone interacts with a device made using its power, that might also help us refine our search,” said Erik.

“I don’t see why you can’t have both. The Tesseract can be used to travel anywhere in the universe. Surely you can use it to create such a device. Perhaps one we might use to travel beyond the reach of the Bifrost.”

“So...you want us to just casually design a transporter with unlimited range, just to use as a control group for playing intergalactic hide-and-seek?” said Banner.

“Why, is that unreasonable?” said Thor blandly. It was moments like this that he best understood Loki’s love of mischief. The play of indignation, bewilderment, and defiance on all three scientists’ faces was quite amusing to watch.

X

The following day, Thor, Sif, the Warriors Three, and a small company of Einherjar accompanied Jane, Erik, and Banner to Svartalfheim. Only one of the humans really needed to come and help identify the materials they needed, but they all jumped at the chance to visit another world, so Thor couldn’t deny them. Thor had of course invited Loki too, but he preferred to continue his training with Gerd and Fjolnir over fetching scraps of Dokkalfar technology. As Loki had spurned many an invitation over the centuries and then seemed distant and resentful when Thor accepted it and left without him, Thor asked a few more times to make sure he really meant it, until Loki lost all patience and slammed his chamber door in Thor’s face. 

Thor did not particularly like having to go back to Svartalfheim, but he concealed this as best he could—a feat made easier by the knowledge that his mother and brother were both safe and well on Asgard. They flew into the Bifrost on two small longships, and emerged in the barren black wastes of the Dokkalfar’s realm.

“This place used to be habitable?” said Banner, staring at the landscape. 

“It was before my grandfather finished with it,” said Thor grimly. 

“You mean the war ruined the whole planet?”

“No more than the Dokkalfar deserved.” 

Banner raised his eyebrows. “They’re that bad, huh? And you’re looking to find what’s left of them and kill them too?”

Thor noticed his tone and scowled at him. “How else would you deal with a people that wants to extinguish all life in the cosmos but themselves?” The very idea of offering mercy to those who had killed his mother, nearly killed Loki, and brought so much destruction upon Asgard made him bristle. They would do it all again if they had the chance, and he would not allow it.

Banner lifted his hands. “Hey, I’m sure you know more about it than I do, and if that’s their goal, then maybe you don’t have a choice. It’s just that when I left Earth, I didn’t think I was going to be helping you commit genocide.”

Thor’s own words rang in his ears.  _ You can’t kill an entire race! _ But the comparison was absurd. It wasn’t the same as turning the Bifrost on Jotunheim. The Dokkalfar  _ would _ carry out Malekith’s plans. Thor had already lived through it. They were guilty. ...So why did the prospect leave him with a sick feeling in his stomach?

Moments later, they crested a hill and were suddenly overlooking the largest battlefield Thor had ever seen. The ground was littered with Dokkalfar skeletons still clad in their armor and eerie white masks, and the shattered remnants of at least a dozen ships just like Malekith’s rose across the land like small mountains. There were traces here and there of Bor’s army—golden weapons and pieces of broken armor scattered amongst the bodies—but Bor would have seen to it that none of Asgard’s fallen remained. They had surely all been given warrior’s funerals back home. 

Thor saw Jane shiver slightly on the other longboat at the sight. His fellow Aesir and Hogun all regarded the battlefield with fierce eyes and clenched jaws. Undoubtedly they were imagining the battle itself, and remembering the stories of this war and how Malekith had smashed his own ships atop the fighters in his final attempt to crush Bor’s forces.

The party flew to the nearest of the downed ships. The hull had been shredded when it collided with the planet’s surface, so it was easy for them to make their way inside. The Aesir helped the mortals navigate the treacherous terrain, while they in turn pointed out items and bits of ruined machinery they thought could prove useful. Before two hours had passed, they declared that they had all they needed. 

No one objected to heading back to Asgard. It had not been a very enjoyable trip.

X

For an entire fortnight now, Loki had continued to lose snowball fights against Fjolnir every morning. The only progress he was making in frjosleikr (as Gerd refused to volunteer any further instruction until he cleared this absurd hurdle, and he wasn’t going to ask) was that he was now much better at controlling the shape of the pieces of ice he made. Nothing he had tried so far made the slightest impact on its actual consistency, though, and he would never land a snowball strike on the boy if he couldn’t make snow in the first place. However, each defeat only made him more single-minded. He was sure there was plenty going on with the mortals’ efforts to locate Malekith’s army and other preparations based on Thor’s information, but his focus was entirely on mastering these abilities. 

“Fjolnir won again?” said Thor as Loki stalked past him in the corridor on the way back to his chambers.

Loki glared at him, which didn’t stop him from falling into step at his side. “Choose your words with care, Brother. You missed out on being the target of a thousand years of ice-themed tricks, and I am perfectly willing to make up for them all in one go.”

Thor grinned. “I’m sure you would, but don’t you need to work out how to do it first?”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “I know enough already to freeze you in your bathwater, put ice beneath your foot on the training grounds, or turn your ale solid.” Being able to do those things when they were children would have been perfectly just repayment for the many times Thor’s uncontrolled static discharge had left Loki’s hair a frizzy mess. 

Thor raised his hands in surrender, though he was still grinning. 

They walked in silence for a few seconds, before Loki burst out, “I can’t work out what I’m doing wrong! I’ve tried everything I can think of, and I’ve read all the books Asgard has about the Jotnar, but none of them has anything useful to say about frjosleikr. The closest was a series of diagrams of different  _ fetils svell _ and discussions on which were most effective in different combat styles, but nothing at all about making snow.” He’d attempted it numerous times in the privacy of his chambers, hoping to take advantage of the absence of snowballs flying at him every other second, but to no effect. 

“Perhaps you’re overthinking it,” said Thor with a shrug. 

“You  _ would _ say that,” said Loki with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “Overthinking things and seidr are what I do best. They tend to go together, which is precisely why  _ you _ never made much headway studying it.”

“This isn’t seidr, though,” said Thor, not doing Loki the satisfaction of rising to his insults. “Maybe being so good at that is making this harder, because you automatically approach it like a fully trained seidmann.” 

Loki grimaced. The last two weeks had been humiliating enough; he didn’t want  _ Thor _ to be right on top of that. But if he was being fair, Loki had to admit that Thor’s elemental abilities were certainly closer to being like frjosleikr than the subtle ways he used his own seidr. He might have a point. “How do you control storms?”

“I don’t always,” said Thor. “Sometimes they just react to me. Strong emotions feed them. Mjolnir acts as a focus.” 

Before Loki could reply, Munin came flapping towards them with a low croak. 

“A summons?” said Thor. “Now?”

“Something must have happened,” said Loki. They exchanged a tense glance and jogged after the raven, who led them to the council chambers. Odin was there, conversing with the golden image of Heimdall. Odin spared them a glance and gestured them closer.

“Repeat your news, Gatekeeper,” he said.

“I have found the Mad Titan,” said Heimdall. Thor went rigid at Loki’s side, and he could feel the electricity crackling within him. “He lurks near the very edge of my sight. I have been watching him for the last few days. All is as Thor described. He has the Mind Stone, a number of powerful lieutenants, and vast armies at his command. An hour ago, he dispatched two of those lieutenants with one of his largest ships.” 

“What is their destination?” said Odin. “Asgard?”

“Nidavellir?” said Loki.

“Midgard?” said Thor.

“No. Yggdrasil’s defenses must still be enough to deter them, for they pursue other goals. The ship can hold an army, but it is empty.”

“Then they are not bound for war?” said Odin. 

“For the moment, they only seek to prepare for it,” said Heimdall. “They mean to return with yet another army for their master, and they have set their course for Sakaar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So last summer when I did my post-Infinity War rewatch marathon (I am currently on my pre-Endgame rewatch marathon), when I was watching Guardians of the Galaxy, I noticed that Ronan's creepy grayish, nightmare-faced troops are referred to as Sakaarans. And yet we never saw any of those guys actually on Sakaar. Perhaps because they'd already been recruited. :D 
> 
> This chapter was a beast. So much technical stuff to figure out. My breakthrough came when I realized that having pieces of Dark Elf technology that was made using the Aether would be really useful, and then I was finally able to write the rest of it. 
> 
> The reason the big portal to Sakaar isn't there is that I headcanon that it was created when Thor smashed the Bifrost. So it doesn't exist in this timeline because that never happened.
> 
> Now it's time for the arc I was so excited to get to. Hopefully Endgame is awesome and satisfying and doesn't leave me a despondent wreck with no will to write.


	22. Cosmonaut

Two weeks and two days from when Thor had disappeared with Dr. Foster, Dr. Selvig, and an undergrad poli-sci student in a pillar of rainbow light about two miles outside of D.C., the second pillar of light appeared on the same patch of grass, burning away what had regrown and sending up alerts all through the Triskelion. The light soon faded and out stepped a lone man with a sword on his belt, dressed in leather armor similar to Thor’s, though he wasn’t nearly as huge as Thor and had auburn hair. 

The pair of agents stationed at the Bifrost site stood ramrod straight to greet him, the picture of professionalism (the surveillance footage would show that, up until thirty seconds ago, they had been slouching in their chairs, sipping coffees and listening to a football game on the radio). 

The man from Asgard turned to face them and inclined his head. “I am Geir Gunnarson, Huskarl of the third company of the Einherjar,” he announced, “here on behalf of Prince Thor and Prince Loki to escort two agents of the SHIELD of Midgard to Asgard, as requested by Director Fury. Are you the agents in question?”

“No,” said one of them, “but we’ll let HQ know you’re here.”

“Very good.” 

X

“This is an opportunity we cannot waste,” said Thor. “Please? Perhaps a few days away from Asgard and a decent fight will help you come back to your Frjosleikr lessons with a new approach.”

“There’s no need to beg,” said Loki. “I’m aware that we can hardly waste a chance to deprive Thanos of an army and two of his most powerful minions, and I can hardly stay here to be pelted by snowballs while you muck it all up on your own.”

“Excellent!” said Thor. “Then you will come with me after I meet with the SHIELD agents Fury is sending?”

“You mean today? Then the transporters are ready to use?” said Loki, surprised. 

“That’s what Banner said at breakfast,” said Thor. 

Loki gave an aggrieved sigh. “The mortals have worked out how to do instantaneous intergalactic travel and I still can’t make so much as a bloody snowflake.”

X

This being potentially the most important reconnaissance mission in the history of the planet and them being the top two field operatives of SHIELD, Natasha and Clint were the obvious choices to liaise with Asgard. Within an hour of Geir’s arrival, they were accompanying him back to the Bifrost site, dressed casually and carrying no visible weapons. 

“So how does this work?” said Clint as they stepped into the pattern of charred grass.

“We simply stand here and the Bifrost will do the rest,” said Geir. A smile cracked through his stoic warrior’s facade, making him look much less like a space Viking and much more like the kind of guy you’d find at a neighborhood barbecue. “I think you will enjoy it. It is quite a memorable experience. Are you ready?” 

“As we’ll ever be,” said Natasha. Clint wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She allowed it and clung to him in a way that suggested she was more nervous than she was. The idea was to be underestimated, but they were going to another planet. Maybe she really was this nervous.

Geir looked skyward. “Heimdall,” he called.

The clouds overhead began to swirl, and then that column of light came blasting down. Clint’s grip on Natasha tightened as they were pulled off the ground. The earth fell away, and before she knew what was happening, she was rushing past stars, planets, asteroid fields, and nebulae almost faster than she could process what she was seeing. 

“I wish Laura and the kids could see this,” Clint breathed. 

“You’ll have quite the story for them,” said Natasha.

Seconds later, they stumbled after Geir into a circular chamber, at the center of which stood easily the most majestic man Natasha had ever seen, his hands on the hilt of a sword set into some kind of console. His elaborate golden armor and helmet should have seemed silly, but they didn’t, and it was a little too easy to play the part of swooning girl trying to hide her reaction to a man. She swallowed hard. 

“Agents Barton and Romanoff of SHIELD, welcome to Asgard,” he said, fixing them with gleaming eyes as golden as his armor.

“Thanks,” said Clint, shooting Natasha a teasing glance and giving her a slight nudge. 

She broke eye contact with the man, presumably Heimdall, and nodded. 

“Come with me,” said Geir. “I’ll take you to the palace. That is where your scientists are staying.”

In the end, it was impossible to do anything but play the part of gawking tourist. Asgard was stunning, and there was so much to look at. How long had this place been here, and Earth had only had a vague idea of it in one culture’s mythology? 

They rode a flying longboat from the Bifrost Observatory into the city. As fascinating as the architecture was, Natasha was most interested in watching the people they passed, who increased in number the farther they went into the city. Asgard seemed to be a cheerful place with a lot of energy. Craftsmen called out their wares and prices, children wound their way between adults, horses, and vendor stalls, giggling and waving practice weapons or playing games, and she heard multiple bursts of full-bellied laughter from groups of shoppers. Once, the sound of shattering ceramics had her whip around to face a building that seemed to be some kind of restaurant, but it was only followed by more laughter. Most of the open squares either had musicians and dancers or what looked like casual sword fighting tournaments, surrounded by rings of delighted onlookers. No one looked sick, underfed, or dirty, but they also didn’t look snobbish or arrogant, and the city itself was in pristine condition. It appeared that whatever Thor and Loki’s family did to run this place, they were doing a good job. 

The whole trip from the Observatory to the towering golden palace took about an hour (she estimated that the entire planetoid was at most a few hundred miles across), and then they were disembarking and Geir was leading them through the biggest doors Natasha had ever seen. They had barely stepped inside when there was a delighted shout.

“I didn’t know you would be the ones Director Fury would send!” It was Thor, and despite the fact that he and Natasha had only met briefly at the Triskelion when he tried to invite her to Stark’s mansion for some reason, he reached for her as well as Clint and pulled them into a hug.

“Damn, is he always like this?” Natasha gasped.

“Yep,” wheezed Clint. 

Thor set them back down and beamed at them, his hands still on their shoulders. “It is so good to have you on Asgard. How do you like it so far?” 

Natasha smiled back automatically. She was having a hard time with the idea that someone with as much power as Thor could be this genuine. For all she knew, it was a species thing, and what she’d seen on the way over certainly supported that idea. It shouldn’t take too long to be sure. “It’s beautiful, and your people seem pretty happy.”

“Yeah,” said Clint. “We had to wrestle Coulson to get the assignment.”

“The Son of Coul is welcome on Asgard whenever he would like to come,” said Thor. “He was a great help to my brother and me during our visit to Earth, and we would gladly return the favor.” He looked over at Geir, who clapped his right fist over his heart and gave a partial bow. Thor nodded back. “Thank you, Geir. Was that your first time on Midgard?”

“It was, my prince. Will you need me to escort more mortals in future?”

“Very likely, when I can’t do it myself. I will send for you when it is time for Barton and Romanoff to return.”

“Yes, my prince.” 

He bowed again and withdrew, and Thor turned back to Natasha and Clint. “You’ve come just in time. Jane, Erik, and Dr. Banner have made great progress on their work. The short-range tests of their transporters have been successful, and they want to move on to long-range tests to see how much farther they have to go on the tracker to locate the Dokkalfar fleet.”

“What about the other one,” said Clint. “Thanos?” 

Thor’s eager smile hardened into something more like a snarl. “He lacks the Dokkalfar’s cloaking technology, and we’ve already located him. His base of operations is too well fortified to attack directly, but he’s just sent two of his minions to a remote world with little support. We believe their mission is to deliver him another amy, and we mean to thwart them in it.”

Natasha frowned slightly as she and Clint followed Thor to a staircase and up a few levels, while Thor described Sakaar and what he intended to do there. If Thanos was an old enemy of his father’s from before he was born, then why was he acting like this was so personal for him? She’d read everything Thor and Loki had given Fury on Thanos and the Dokkalfar. Thanos’s habit of invading planets and slaughtering half of their occupants because of some extremely backwards ideas about cosmic balance and resource availability was horrifying. It was definitely worth fighting a war, but to really hate someone, you had to know them better than having a general understanding of their military strategy and ideology. Was Thor just that gung-ho about war, or was there something else going on here? 

X

It took Jane Foster about half an hour to explain the devices she, Selvig, Banner, and an Asgardian engineer had made. The transporters, of which there were two, looked like something out of an H.G. Wells book, if Wells had possessed an intense interest in Norse iconography. Perched atop five spindly legs was a sleek golden cylinder about four feet tall. A third of its height was taken up by a clear chamber full of a swirling, gleaming blue substance. Numerous handles protruded from the sides and there was a dial on the top with four concentric rings and a holographic projection display.

The other device was much less impressive in appearance. It looked like a fancy, oversized geiger counter with a long golden antenna sticking out of the top. It, too, had dials and a holographic display.

Natasha was not a stupid woman, but she felt like one beside Dr. Foster, listening to her explanation of how the devices were meant to work. The only other people who didn’t seem to be following much of what she said were Clint and the poli-sci intern. Even Thor and his band of warrior friends looked more impressed than confused, but Loki was the only one actively asking questions and pointing out potential problems. 

The gist, Natasha thought, was that if you wanted to teleport somewhere in the universe, you twisted the rings around the top to set your destination, then grabbed onto one of the handles and held on for dear life. The tracker thing was presumably capable of tracing energy signatures across space, which was the main point of having two transporters. The computing power that must be packed into these small devices to be able to calculate such precise locations across such vast distances had to be insane.

“The transporters are fuelled by the Tesseract,” said Dr. Banner. “A little of that will get you pretty far, but it won’t last forever. If we’re talking different galaxies, I don’t think you’ll get more than two uses out of it a pop.” 

“How do you know it’ll work?” said Clint.

“We’ve already tested it on Asgard,” said Dr. Selvig. “We sent it from one end of the palace to the other, first by itself, then with a small passenger one of the guards found digging up a flowerbed in the garden.” He indicated a cage on the table across the room, which contained a creature that resembled an oversized raccoon, except that it had longer ears. “We’ve had him under observation since yesterday, and there don’t seem to be any ill effects, so Bruce and Vidar tried it about an hour ago.”

“Then it’s safe for both mortals and Aesir to use,” said Thor. “Marvelous. Why don’t we try a destination a little farther afield?”

“Right now?” said Loki. “You want to go right now?”

“Why not?” said Thor. He looked at the scientists. “Loki and I can take the first one, and then you can use the tracker and send Sif, Fandral, Hogan, and Volstagg after us.”

The four Asgardians in question stood up straighter and touched their weapons. 

“When we all come back, you’ll know it all works, and we can see to the Dokkalfar,” Thor went on. He looked at Natasha and Clint, his grin returning. “Want to come?”

“What, use a prototype device to travel to a remote planet run by a crazy guy to help you take down two of this genocidal warlord’s lieutenants?” said Clint. 

“Yes, I think having a couple of expert spies along will be a significant advantage,” said Thor. Natasha noticed that while Loki seemed satisfied by this, the other warriors looked a little incredulous.

“Sounds like fun,” said Clint.

Natasha gave both of them a flat look. She hadn’t decided yet whether this was better or worse than working undercover at Stark Industries, but Thor looked so damn happy about the idea of the two of them coming along. “Our assignment specifically said to gather any intel we can on our big upcoming threats,” she said reluctantly. “It shouldn’t be too hard to justify making it home a little later than planned.”

“If you’re sure about this,” said Selvig. 

Natasha, Clint, Thor, and Loki each stepped up to one of the handles on the first transporter. Thor twisted the dials on top, bringing up a hologram of a small planet, then poked a spot near what looked like a massive city of skyscrapers. “Ready?” he asked. It was as ridiculous a question now as when Geir had asked it, but Natasha and Clint both nodded. 

All together, they twisted the handles ninety degrees counter-clockwise. Webs of golden light shot out of the center console and enveloped them, and then there was a blast of blue energy, a sensation like they were spinning very fast, and the laboratory disappeared from view.

X

Sif watched the princes and the mortal spies vanish using the transporter, and she had to admit that she had underestimated the scientists. 

“Can the tracker see where they’ve gone?” said Volstagg.

“Let’s find out,” said Jane Foster, touching the dials on the device in question. “It’s picking up a few different signals. I looks like there’s some back on Earth, which makes sense. Oh, here we go, this is the strongest one besides the Tesseract, and it’s well outside Yggdrasil.” She walked up to the second transporter and entered the coordinates into it. “Okay, you’re all set.”

Sif and the Warriors Three did the same as the others had. Traveling this way felt very different than traveling by Bifrost, and Sif already knew which one she preferred, but the unpleasant spinning sensation was over quickly, and they found themselves standing amid long, purple grass under a reddish sky. Not too far away was a cluster of huts decorated in vibrant colors, and a few children with green skin and pointed ears chased each other around until an adult voice within the nearest hut called out to them, and they walked, slump-shouldered, back inside. It was a pleasant site, but Thor and Loki were conspicuously absent.

“Er, have we come to the right place?” said Fandral.

Sif frowned and looked back at the transporter’s console. She prodded one of the dials, and it brought up the destination Jane Foster had entered. It wasn’t a planet she was familiar with, so she couldn’t say. 

“Sif, Fandral,” said Hogun, his tone sharp and his hand on Hridgandr. Beside him, Volstagg was drawing his axe. They spun around, reaching for their swords. Something was flying towards them at great speed. Something that was giving off nearly blinding golden light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don’t talk about Endgame in the comments. Not everyone has seen it yet. I have, and my fear that it would sap my will to write appears to have been unfounded. I’m actually even more determined to work on this fic than I was before I saw it. :)
> 
> I also saw Captain Marvel for the second time last Monday, and it *may* have inspired part of this chapter. The first time I saw it, I liked it okay but felt like the final battle should’ve been harder to win. On the rewatch, I realized that, in terms of plot structure, the final battle is more of a victory lap. The climax already happened. So that fixed my biggest problem with it. 
> 
> Natasha's reaction to Heimdall is pretty much my reaction to Heimdall. He's ridiculously attractive.
> 
> My original plan was to have Fitzsimmons be the SHIELD agents who got sent to Asgard, but in planning out the Sakaar arc, I realized that I needed Clint and Nat more. In any case, we’re finally in the Sakaar arc and I am SO HAPPY. Been looking forward to it for months, and I think I finally have all the plotty things sorted out for it.


	23. Recalculating

Sif and the Warriors Three scarcely had time to arrange themselves in an arc in front of the transporter, weapons raised, before the blaze of white-gold light resolved itself into a blonde woman a couple inches shorter than Sif. Sif would’ve thought her a mortal if not for the incredible aura of power around her. And the fact that she was floating about a foot off the ground. Her suit looked vaguely Kree, but no Kree would ever wear those colors. She touched down a few yards in front of them, expression fierce. “Who are you and how did you find this place?”

“We are Lady Sif and the Warriors Three of Asgard,” said Sif. “We’re here to provide reinforcements to our princes, who should have arrived just moments ago.”

“Princes?” said the woman. “There aren’t any princes here.”

“But this is where the signal led us!” Hogun protested. 

“What signal?”

“That is privileged information, good lady,” said Volstagg. “We do not have leave from the throne of Asgard to divulge it.”

“Yeah, well you showed up armed on the planet I was pretty sure was remote enough that the people I’m protecting would be safe from discovery or attack, so I kinda need to know why or we’re gonna have a problem.” She raised a fist, which ignited into a whirl of white-gold light.

“Eheh, no, we mean no harm,” said Fandral, lowering his sword and pushing Sif’s down a few inches. “You are quite sure, though, that no princes went past here recently? Both tall, one huge and blond and carrying a large warhammer, the other dark and more wiry, quite skilled with magic? They would be dressed in armor similar to our own.”

“Nope,” she said, folding her arms. “Haven’t seen anyone like that.”

The four of them wilted a bit and exchanged confused and disappointed looks. “Where could they be, then?” said Sif. 

“Did the signal take us to the wrong place?” said Hogun.

“It certainly doesn’t appear to be covered in refuse, as Thor described,” said Sif.

“You still haven’t told me what this signal is,” said the woman. 

Sif shot her a calculating look. “You are a defender of the weak?”

“I do what I can.” She had a bit of a satisfied smirk on her lips. It spoke of understatement, not deception. 

“Perhaps we could…,” said Volstagg. They all exchanged another glance, then nodded and put away their weapons.

“The Midgardian scientists Bruce Banner, Erik Selvig, and Jane Foster used the Tesseract and materials provided by Asgard to create transporters that could take us across the universe,” said Sif. “Prince Thor and Prince Loki used the first one, along with Agents Barton and Romanoff of SHIELD, and we tried to pinpoint the energy signature of their device so we could follow, to test whether such a tracking endeavor would be successful.”

“Yes, and it would appear to be an extraordinary failure,” said Fandral.

The woman was staring at them, confusion replacing hostility. “The Tesseract? You guys had access to the Tesseract? And you’re working with Earth scientists and SHIELD agents. Does Fury know about this?”

“Fury?” said Hogun.

“Wasn’t that the name of the leader of SHIELD?” said Sif.

“I do believe it was,” said Volstagg. “Yes, the princes spoke of working with him while they were on Midgard.”

For the first time since they encountered her, the woman smiled. “Okay, I think I know how you ended up here,” she said, her posture loosening.

“Really?” said Fandral. 

“Yeah, if you’re tracking stuff made with the Tesseract.”

“There’s something like that here?” said Sif.

“You’re looking at her.” The woman grinned, and more of that white-gold light rippled over her. “Carol Danvers. Pleased to meet you.”

They all (except Hogun) smiled back at her. “Well met, indeed,” said Volstagg with a gallant bow. “I am Volstagg. My companions are Fandral and Hogun, and the Lady Sif has already introduced herself.”

“The mortal scientists will be pleased to know their tracker works,” said Sif. “But we must return. The princes are expecting us to be right behind them, and Thor said Sakaar could be a very dangerous world.”

“I hope we will have the honor of your company again one day,” said Fandral. He swept a bow before Carol Danvers and took her hand. When he tried to drop a kiss on the back, there was a slight surge of energy and a zapping sound, and he drew back quickly with a laugh, his goatee smoking a little.

“Maybe you will,” she said. 

“Fare thee well until then,” said Volstagg, “and may the good people under your protection remain happy and prosperous!”

Her smile widened. The light engulfed her again and she took to the sky.

After watching her go for a few seconds, they gathered back around the transporter and Hogun entered in Asgard’s coordinates. Sif noticed that the fuel chamber was now barely more than half full. Bruce Banner hadn’t been wrong about how long it would last. They twisted the handles, and their surroundings spun away from them.

X

About ten minutes after the second transporter vanished, the laboratory was flooded with blue light again and then Sif and the Warriors Three were back. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what happened?” said Bruce, trying not to let his alarm get the better of him. “It didn’t work?”

“Oh, it worked,” said Fandral.

“We followed the wrong signal,” said Sif. “It took us to a distant planet, but not the one Thor, Loki, and the SHIELD agents went to.”

“How did that happen?” said Jane with a deep frown. She fiddled with the tracker. “The destination definitely matched that signal.”

“Well, the coordinates you entered  _ did _ lead to something made with the Tesseract, but that something was a young woman with powerful abilities, not the first transporter,” said Volstagg.

“She seemed pleasant enough,” said Fandral.

“Hey!” said Darcy. 

“Not  _ that _ pleasant,” he added quickly.

Darcy gave a haughty nod. 

“Oh,” said Jane. “Okay, well we’ll just try a different signal this time. There’s only one more that’s showing up on the tracker, so it should be the right one.” 

“First we’ll have to refuel,” said Erik, already at work preparing to extract more energy from the Tesseract. “It’ll be about an hour before the transporter will be ready again.”

“Excellent,” said Volstagg. “That leaves time for lunch.” And he strode from the lab in search of food.

“I could go for some lunch, too,” said Darcy with a pointed glance at Fandral.

“Allow me to accompany you,” he said, offering his arm. They exited at a slightly faster pace than Volstagg had. 

“I think I should come with you guys,” said Bruce. “In case something goes wrong with the transporter.”

“Are you certain?” said Hogun.

“Sakaar isn’t likely to be a relaxing experience,” said Sif.

Bruce shrugged. “In that case, you might need me even more.”

X

Sakaar looked pretty much the same as Thor remembered it. Perhaps the trash heaps were slightly smaller. He turned and searched the horizon for the Devil’s Anus, but its absence was even more obvious on this end than Asgard’s.  

“Okay, of the two planets I’ve seen today, I already know which one is my favorite,” said Barton, watching a few of the ships flying in the distance. 

“Yeah,” said Romanoff, coughing and covering her nose. “Is this entire place made of garbage?”

“Very possibly,” said Thor.

“Lovely,” said Loki. He waved his hands over the transporter, which vanished.

“Whoa, what was that?” said Barton.

“We can hardly leave a piece of prototype technology like that lying about,” said Loki. “It’ll be safe in my dimensional pocket until we need it for the return trip.”

“That’s handy,” said Romanoff. 

“Coulson said the same,” said Loki, looking pleased. 

Barton stared around, frowning. “Uh...weren’t your friends supposed to be coming right after us?”

“Yes,” said Loki. “Even if the tracker doesn’t work, which I must admit I doubt after the success of the transporter, Heimdall could direct them to us. It shouldn’t be much longer.”

Thor turned on the spot, an awful sinking feeling in his stomach. “I’m such a fool.”

“True,” said Loki, “but why, specifically?”

“Time moves differently on Sakaar. I forgot. I don’t think we should wait here for them.”

“What do you mean time moves differently?” said Barton sharply. 

Thor looked at him, knowing precisely why he would be so alarmed by this news, but not free to acknowledge it. “Weeks on Sakaar are mere moments on other worlds, and yet you could stay here for thousands of years and never age a day.”

“So...even if they left right after we did, it’s going to be a while before they show up here?”

“Most likely,” said Thor. “I don’t think the ratio of Sakaaran time to outside time is constant.” Which was how Hela had been able to reduce Asgard’s entire population to what would fit on the  _ Statesman _ in a period that had felt like two days for him and not quite a month for Loki.

“Then we should head for the city now,” said Loki.

“Yes,” said Thor, still kicking himself. It wasn’t especially reassuring to think that however much time they might lose to Sakaar, it couldn’t be more than a couple years. For a mortal who was a husband and father, even a single year was already far too long to be away from home, and Thor might have just cost his friend that because of his thoughtless haste to spend time together. The alternative, that time would move faster here than elsewhere, wasn’t necessarily better, as it meant that they wouldn’t have any backup against Thanos’s lieutenants and whatever the Grandmaster felt like doing. At least...not any backup that wasn’t local. “Just, whatever you do, don’t let anyone stick a little metal disk on you.”

They got about a hundred paces closer to the city when a rickety ship landed directly in their path. “Here we go,” said Thor irritably. He’d expected this kind of interruption.

“Who are these guys?” said Romanoff.

“Scavengers,” said Thor.

“What do they want?” said Barton.

“To eat us.”

“Oh.” He could hear them drawing their weapons and getting into fighting stances, and Loki was doing the same.

Masked aliens piled out of the ship, well over a dozen of them in a variety of species. 

Thor raised Mjolnir. “Let us pass, and we will have no quarrel with you,” he said. 

“Let us pass and we will have no quarrel with you,” one of them repeated in a singsong voice. The rest of them laughed.

“You’re not going anywhere, food,” said the one in the middle, whose mask was red with odd tufts coming off the side. “That’s a nice hammer. I think I’ll keep it.” He raised what Thor recognized as an electric net launcher. He had no intention of letting him use it.

“You want the hammer?” he said with a smile. “Here!” He threw it at the creature. It shattered the net launcher on impact and drove its wielder back with enough force to bowl over several of his comrades. The rest roared battle cries and attacked.

X

The Grandmaster was having quite an enjoyable morning in his palace. He had his favorite drink next to him, his new keyboard before him, a fresh coat of paint on his nails, he was having an exceptionally good hair day, and even though yesterday’s arena event had been a little lackluster, the party that followed had mostly made up for it. 

A couple hundred people milled about in the grand hall, all dancing enthusiastically to his musical stylings (or else), including a few dozen of the prisoners with jobs, as a nice treat for them. He was halfway through a particularly good solo when the crowd parted to reveal his important guests. He grimaced. He hadn’t expected them to be so ugly. One was super skinny and had sickly, wrinkly skin, no nose, and terrible hair, and the other was some kind of massive, scaly lizard thing.

Wrinkles spoke first. “The Great Titan s—”

The Grandmaster held up a finger and played his next chord. Wrinkles’s eyes flashed and Scales let out a growl. The Grandmaster continued to play his solo, amused by their impatience. They clearly needed this reminder that he didn’t answer to their big purple overlord, he was just interested in the guy’s units. He added a few flourishes just to annoy them more. By the time he played the final glissando, a full ten minutes had elapsed since their arrival. 

“As I was saying,” said Wrinkles, his lip curling, “the Great Titan sends his respects to the Grandmaster of Sakaar.”

“Ooh, I like respects,” said the Grandmaster. “Can’t spend them, though, and I’m hoping to add another tower to my palace.” 

“Ten thousand units per soldier, as per the agreement.” 

“I don’t know. Fifteen thousand would be a lot more respectful. And, uh, I’d like your friend here to do a few rounds in my arena.” He looked at the towering lizard thing. “How about it, Scales? You’d give us quite a show.”

“We are not here for your entertain—” Wrinkles began in cold outrage, but Topaz came striding past him without giving him so much as a glance and interrupted.

“Boss, there’s been a disturbance in the trash fields to the east of the city.”

“A disturbance?”

“Yes, this was just a few minutes ago.” She pulled out a security pad and tapped the screen. It cast a silent hologram into the space between them and their guests. At first, it was just an image of garbage heaps, but then there was a brilliant flash of blue light, which faded to reveal four people standing around a weird-looking device. The black-haired one waved his hands and made the device disappear. Topas slid her fingers along the screen, so the scene sped along at quadruple speed for a bit. She let it play normally again, and a gang of scavengers landed their ship and accosted the newcomers. The Grandmaster watched, intrigued, as the four of them took down their numerous opponents. The muscular blond used a big hammer and blasts of lightning to fight, and the pretty black-haired one kept vanishing and conjuring duplicates. The shorter blond and the redhead defeated at least two scavengers apiece, but they didn’t appear to be anything special. 

“If these trespassers are going to be a problem for you,” said Wrinkles, his tone silky smooth, “we will gladly take them off your hands. Would you like us to transfer you the fifteen thousand units per head right now? And how many times would you like Cull Obsidian to battle in your arena?”

There was obvious greed and eagerness in Wrinkles’s eyes, and Scales showed no sign of objecting. The Grandmaster knew when he was being scammed out of a good deal. He and his brother had that in common. “So generous all of a sudden,” he said. “But there’s no need for you to go to so much trouble. You’ll get your army, and I’ll have my guys take care of the trespassers. They look like they might be even better in my arena than Scales, so you’re off the hook for that.”

“Perhaps we can come to a compromise,” said Wrinkles, spreading his bony hands. 

“I’m listening,” said the Grandmaster slowly.

“We will assist you in capturing them. You keep the large blond and the two smaller ones, and we’ll take the mage. Cull will fight for you three times, and we’ll add another thousand units per head.”

The Grandmaster took a sip of his drink and stroked his chin. “I think we’re in business.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I was really nervous about writing the Grandmaster because I've never written such a weird character before. I did not need to worry. It came out super easily. It was awesome. 
> 
> In case it wasn't clear, "Wrinkles" is Ebony Maw, and the reason he and Cull are so eager to get their hands on our heroes is because they recognized the power source of the transporter from that blue flash. They know they're looking at people with access to an Infinity Stone. 
> 
> It's never stated in Ragnarok, but the only way Hela's massacre of what seems like >90% of Asgard's people makes sense to me is if the Asgard plotline took a couple years. Which would also account for how long Heimdall's hair is. He probably needs about four years to get it that long, and only two of those years are accounted for, assuming he only started growing it out after "Odin" fired him, which probably wasn't immediately after TDW. So there, I fixed it. Also, what the Grandmaster says about his own age makes me think time doesn't really touch you on Sakaar, which also explains how Valkyrie, who should be at least a thousand years older than Thor and Loki, looks younger than them. 
> 
> Also, when I said not to discuss Endgame in the comments, that didn't mean I wanted people to send me private messages about how much they hated it. I quite enjoyed the movie and have very few complaints, so you're in the wrong place if you want someone to rant about it with you.


	24. Language Barrier

Natasha pulled a pair of handguns from her hidden underarm holsters and took aim. She wouldn’t normally be in favor of fighting over a dozen opponents out in the open with only three allies, but Thor and Loki weren’t fazed and Clint seemed confident enough in them that she went along with it too. 

By about the five second mark after the fighting began, Natasha wholeheartedly agreed with Clint. Both Asgardians hit like semi trucks, and that was before you counted what Thor could do with the hammer and lightning and what Loki could do with daggers and deception, or how flawlessly they worked together. This left SHIELD’s top field agents just a few strays to clean up on the flanks, which felt more like a courtesy than a necessity. The fight was made even easier when several of the scavengers screamed something incomprehensible and bolted away between trash heaps as soon as it became clear that the tide was not going to turn in their favor. 

It was over in under a minute, with zero injuries to their team. Natasha picked up and examined a blaster gun thing that had narrowly missed blowing a hole through her shoulder before she shot its wielder between the eyes. It was surprisingly light for something so bulky and powerful. Clint, having already retrieved two of his arrows, was now doing the same with a similar weapon. She watched in amusement as the struggle between his longtime preference for bows and a boyish excitement over real-life science fiction weaponry played out across his brows and jaw. In the end, he unclipped a holster from the dead scavenger, strapped it on, and stuck the blaster in it, then shot her a defensive look before she could make a comment. She laughed. 

“How thoughtful,” said Thor, dropping his hammer back onto his belt. (Neither he nor Loki seemed the least bit interested in the scavengers’ weapons, and Loki’s daggers were suddenly nowhere in sight.) “They left us their ride.” He led the way to the small, bright orange ship their attackers had flown in on. It looked like it had once been a large dumpster, and the inside did nothing to change that impression. Thor kicked aside a few bits of trash on the way to the controls, and Natasha looked for the least contaminated piece of railing to hold onto.

“What language were those guys speaking?” said Clint.

“I believe I heard at least three or four between them,” said Loki. He tapped a panel beside the door, which made it shut behind them, while Thor found the right buttons and levers to power up the ship and get it into the air. Then Loki frowned at Clint and Natasha and groaned. “Oh, damn.”

“What?” said Natasha. 

Loki shot a flat glare at his brother, who looked over his shoulder with a sheepish smile. 

“They don’t know Allspeak and they don’t have translators,” said Loki, arms folded. “They fight well for mortals, but exactly how are they supposed to offer their services as expert spies if they can’t understand any of the written or spoken languages they’ll encounter?”

Clint raised his eyebrows at her at the remark about their mortal fighting prowess, but this definitely sounded like a problem. “Translators?” she said. “Are those something we can pick up around here?”

“Why yes, what an excellent idea,” said Loki, eyes still on Thor. “Did you happen to bring any local currency so that we can buy a couple of translator implants?” 

Thor grimaced. That was a no, then. Loki briefly pressed thumb and forefinger to his temples. “Did you, in fact, make  _ any _ preparations for coming here at all?”

“Well there wasn’t exactly time,” Thor protested, waving an arm at the approaching city. “We only have the one shot to stop Thanos getting an army from Sakaar, and we had to take it.”

“And we’re off to a marvelous start,” said Loki. 

“Wait, these translators are implants?” said Clint nervously. Natasha didn’t particularly like the sound of that either.

“They’re nothing to worry about,” said Thor, turning from the controls to give them a reassuring smile. “Nearly everyone who travels between planets has them. They’re not as good as Allspeak, but most species aren’t capable of learning it anyway.”

Natasha was not reassured. “We should’ve let Coulson have the assignment,” she muttered.

“Okay, so we get these translators, and then what’s the plan?” said Clint. “Stopping a world-destroying warlord from getting an army is a few orders of magnitude above the kind of missions we’re used to.”

“Oh, of course,” said Thor. “First, we find out where Thanos’s minions landed their ship.”

“Yeah,” said Clint.

“Then we learn whatever details we can about their intentions for the army.” 

“Yeah…”

“And then we destroy them and their ship, and possibly the army.” He beamed at them. They did not reciprocate. 

“That’s not a plan,” said Natasha. “That’s a list of objectives.” 

“We were kinda hoping for more details,” said Clint. “The kind of enemies we’re dealing with, rendezvous points if we lose contact, maps, schematics, exit strategies…?”

“We can work those out as we go,” said Thor. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” Loki wasn’t the only one glaring at him now. 

Over the next few minutes, more and more buildings popped up amid the fields of piled garbage they passed, their size and quality gradually improving, even if the smell never changed. Not long after they reached the city proper, Thor found a relatively secluded alley and landed the stolen ship. The four of them disembarked into a shabby but busy market square. Natasha was really looking forward to going noseblind soon, but it definitely hadn’t happened yet.

“So, did you have a solution to the currency problem,” said Thor, “or did you only bring it up to point out my short-sightedness?”

Loki rolled his eyes and waved his hand. Even though it wasn’t the most impressive display she’d seen of his magic, Natasha couldn’t help staring when something small, like a thick, clear credit card, appeared in his palm. He tossed it to Thor. 

“What’s that?” said Clint.

“An access pad to the House of Odin’s account in the banking system of the Nova Empire, with whom Asgard is friendly,” said Loki. “We aren’t, strictly speaking,  _ in _ the Nova Empire at the moment, but in what little time Thor gave me to research our destination, I found that a large number of Sakaar’s portals lead to Nova systems, so there’s a fair chance they’ll accept their money.”

“Good thinking,” said Thor.

“I hope you know that if it wasn’t for me, you’d have starved to death on some uninhabitable rock thousands of lightyears from home before you reached your fifth century,” said Loki. 

Thor grinned and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Yes, and if it wasn’t for me, you’d have barricaded yourself in the library and been crushed by a pile of books.”

“Shut up,” said Loki, shrugging him off. “That wasn’t a guarantee that it’ll work. I say we try it out in a mead hall before you look for translators. Perhaps we’ll learn where that ship is while we’re at it.”

They didn’t have to go far to find this planet’s equivalent of a bar; there was one at the other end of the square. Natasha kept her eyes on their destination with only a few glances around at the crowd of aliens gathered around vendors and shuffling past them. This seedy market couldn’t have been more different from the cheerful bustle she’d seen on Asgard. Its sheer variety was making her realize just how big the universe was, and how small her life seemed in comparison. 

The bar, like the street, contained a variety of alien species. It was illuminated with neon-looking tubes, and every surface was encrusted in dark grime. Natasha noticed Thor scrutinizing the faces of all the patrons. After a few seconds, a delighted smile lit up his features, and he began swatting in the general direction of Loki’s shoulder. “It’s her! She’s here! I can’t believe we found her so soon!”

“What?” said Loki, batting the hand away. “Who?” He, Clint, and Natasha all frowned in the direction Thor was pointing. A dark-skinned woman in black leather armor and a blue cape was leaning against the bar, accepting a large bottle of amber liquid from the alien behind it (who was bright green and had tentacles instead of arms). 

“Who is sh—” Loki began, but he cut off mid-word. The woman had turned around to take her drink back to her table, giving them a clear view of her. Natasha glanced up at Loki and saw that he was frozen in place, staring at her with wide eyes. She looked back at the woman. She had a pretty face, a good figure, and a lot of lean muscle, but her entire demeanor screamed “Do Not Approach.” In the few seconds Natasha watched, three people in the crowded bar nearly walked across her path, saw her, and immediately backpedaled and crammed themselves out of the way. When Natasha looked at Loki again, he was still staring at her with a dazed expression like he’d been clubbed over the head, a tinge of pink now flaring across his pale cheeks.

All the SHIELD agent could do was stifle a snort and hope that an unexpected crush wouldn’t be enough to rob the God of Mischief of his tactical prowess.

Thor looked first surprised, then amused when he noticed Loki’s reaction to the woman, but he said nothing about it. Instead, he strode over to the bar, where Natasha could hear him saying something that included “your finest ales” to the tentacled bartender, whose reply consisted of incomprehensible guttural sounds and shrieks. Thor swiped the Nova access pad against something she couldn’t quite see, then returned with two bottles of electric blue drink. He pressed them both into Loki’s hands, which snapped him out of his distracted daze. 

“They do take Nova units,” said Thor. “I paid the Aaskavarian enough to keep the drinks coming for a couple hours. Hopefully that’ll be enough. Go see if you can convince her to join our team while I get Barton and Romanoff’s translators.”

“What?” said Loki, clearly horrified. “But—”

“Don’t worry, Brother!” said Thor, clapping him on the back. “You’ll do fine. Oh, and if you spot a big Kronan named Korg around here somewhere, recruit him too.” And he led Clint and Natasha from the bar before Loki could object.

X

Mortified and bewildered, Loki struggled to compose himself. The woman sitting across the room was beautiful, yes, but she was far from the most beautiful he’d ever seen, so how could the mere sight of her have such an effect on him that even the mortals had noticed? 

Now that he’d had a moment, he was able to place where he’d seen her before. She had been one of the dead bodies in Thor’s nightmare when Loki broke into his mind before the visit to Midgard. But she hadn’t been wearing these plain black leathers then. No, she’d been dressed in the armor of a Valkyrie. Perhaps that was why he’d reacted to her like a simpleton. Like all children raised on Asgard, he had hero-worshipped the Valkyrior (not as much as Thor, but that might not have been possible), but they had all fallen in battle when he was very young, so he never expected to actually meet one. He was going to stab Thor right in the ribs when they met back up. How could he do this to him? 

Without warning, she looked directly at him. Her gaze traveled down his body and back up, and she raised an eyebrow. It was hard to tell if that look was appreciative or disdainful, but either way, his insides gave a lurch and his face burned. He would likely be better off turning tail and following Thor, but his feet had other ideas and moved him towards her table. When he got within arm’s reach, she tugged one of the bottles from him and popped the cork with her thumb. “I wasn’t sure you’d ever actually come over here,” she said, clinking the bottle against the one he still held and putting it to her lips. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d tolerate the company,” said Loki, far more stiffly than he would have liked.

Her bottle was already half-empty. “I can tolerate a lot if it means free drinks,” she said, then pinned him with a surprisingly sharp gaze. “Even being chatted up by a son of Odin.”

Whatever thin veneer of cool charm Loki had been attempting to pull together vanished. He took a swig from his drink in an effort to regain it, but the stuff was so vile that he nearly choked instead. His surroundings weren’t helping either, as everything around him was filthy. “What gave it away?” he said through a slight cough. 

She gave him a look like he was being obtuse—not the sort of look he often found himself on the receiving end of, but he supposed he and Thor hadn’t exactly done anything to obscure their identities. They were both wearing armor that incorporated metal discs to represent Bor and Buri, an honor granted to precious few outside the royal family. 

She finished her bottle and called for another, which arrived shortly, while Loki sat there in increasingly excruciating silence. Occasional sips from his drink didn’t help, as it continued to taste revolting. That she had recognized him as a son of Odin right away should have made this easier, not harder. It should have been a relief that his position was so obvious to someone who had fought in the Aesir-Jotnar war—particularly someone who hadn’t already spent centuries calling him Prince. But could he really flirt with a  _ Valkyrie _ when she didn’t know what he was? 

Maybe he could have if he wasn’t actually attracted to her.

X

It took about half an hour to locate the upgrades shop the barman had recommended. Barton and Romanoff stuck close behind Thor as they climbed out of the scavengers’ ship again and headed towards it. This part of the city was cleaner (though no one would call it clean) and the people walking through the street wore higher quality clothing. Most of them were headed in the same direction. The shop Thor was after was in between a food vendor selling a number of items that were still wriggling and a shop that appeared to be full of arena souvenirs, with everything from banners to masks to toy versions of various warriors. The upgrade shop had a flashing sign above the open doorway that advertised prosthetic limbs compatible with over two hundred species, cybernetic enhancements, and more. 

The inside put Thor in mind of a dragon’s hoard. Gadgets and circuitry were piled wherever they would fit, leaving only narrow paths to walk through. The three of them squeezed their way along one of these until they reached a counter at the back, but there were no signs of life. “Hello?” Thor called. “Is Urizen Ul’var here? We’d like to purchase a pair of translators.” 

The door behind the counter opened and an alien stepped out. He was humanoid except for very avian features and a thick mane of beetle-green feathers where a human would have had hair. Thor was pretty sure he was Shi’ar, but he’d never actually seen one up close before. “I am Urizen,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting customers today. I thought everyone would be on their way to the arena. Two translators, eh?” He touched the side of his head and a pair of goggles came down over his eyes, magnifying them and giving him an even more bird-like appearance. He scrutinized Barton and Romanoff, who were staring blankly at him. Romanoff offered a feeble smile. “Hmm. Were their old translators damaged?”

“They’ve never had them,” said Thor. “They’re from Earth. This is their first day off-world.”

“Never had translators?” said Ul’var incredulously.

“Is that going to be a problem?” said Thor.

“Not...exactly,” said Ul’var.

“Perhaps we should find someone else to help us,” said Thor.

Ul’var raised his feathery eyebrows. “It wouldn’t make a difference. They’re adults. Their brains are fully developed. I’m not saying the translators won’t work, but the adjustment period isn’t going to be pleasant for them. I just want to make that clear, because all sales are final.”

“What’s he saying?” said Romanoff.

Thor smiled at her and Barton. “Oh, just that the translators might take some getting used to,” he said. His voice came out a little higher pitched than usual. “But it’s like I said before. There’s nothing to worry about!”

Barton and Romanoff exchanged nervous looks. 

X

Topaz was in a bad mood. Being in a bad mood was more or less her default, but today especially. She was a creature of structure and routine. Both were already incredibly scarce commodities on Sakaar, but the boss’s pompous guests had disrupted what little she had managed to keep in place. Now, she had to oversee the promotion of the big stupid frog guy’s arena fights  _ and _ alert all the scrappers about the trespassers, since the trash field security feed lost them once they entered the city. She’d offloaded the former task as quickly as she could (marketing was not her forte), but the latter was proving annoying enough on its own.

The scrappers tended to demand regular payment if you treated them like proper staff, even when they went weeks without bringing in any new slaves or tech, so the Grandmaster kept them on a looser leash than he did the guards and his enforcers. The only trouble with that was it made wrangling them for a particular task complicated. Only a quarter of them responded to her message within the first hour, but most of those were scattered across territory well outside the city. There were only a couple nearby, and they were useless. She scanned through the list, looking for someone good who was close enough to start tracking the trespassers down today. When she saw the number of the one who was, she ground her teeth. 

Scrapper 142. 

Topaz  _ hated _ Scrapper 142. She spent nearly all of her time drowning herself in booze (which, surprise surprise, was exactly what she was doing now, based on her location) and sleeping it off, but the tiny sliver in which she actually bothered to do her job was somehow enough that the Grandmaster was always happy to see her.  _ Nobody _ got special treatment like that, and she wasn’t even grateful! Well, at least Topaz had an excuse to insult her to her face, since she hadn’t bothered to accept her assignment.

Topaz scowled as she entered the bar. Being the Grandmaster’s second-in-command usually meant she didn’t have to come to places this dirty. She spotted Scrapper 142 across the room. Then her mouth fell open in disbelief. The man sitting at the table with her was none other than the mage they were looking for! The big blond warrior and the two less impressive fighters were nowhere in sight, but that was definitely him, and instead of bringing him in, Scrapper 142 was  _ fraternizing  _ with him. 

Behavior like this was completely unacceptable. But as she watched them sitting there, her outrage drained away. What she had on her hands was an opportunity, and she wasn’t going to waste it. She walked up to the bar with a broad smirk on her face. “You!” she barked at the bartender. When he turned and saw who she was, his eyes widened in alarm, and then he immediately abandoned the customer he was helping and hurried over to her.  _ Yeah, that’s right _ , she thought, sneering. 

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“You can add something special to the drinks you’re sending to Scrapper 142’s table.” She passed him a container of purple capsules. “Maximum dose.”

“Of course,” he said. “Right away.”

“Have you seen the three people that guy was with? They all look like the might be Xandarian. Two blonds and a redhead. Really weird clothes.”

“One of the blonds asked me where to get translators for the other two, and I told him to try Urizen Ul’var’s upgrade shop.”

It looked like Topaz wouldn’t need the scrappers after all. Her mood was rapidly improving. She nodded curtly at him and left the bar. Once she was outside, she pulled up the contact for the boss’s guests on her wrist display. After a few seconds, a small hologram of the scodey one with no nose popped up. “Hey, Eggsy Mop,” she said. 

He scowled at her. “My name is Ebony Maw, you insolent—”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Topaz. “I’ve got your special cargo.” His haughty indignation changed instantly to surprise and eagerness—not that it was easy to tell with a face like his. “Should be ready to pick up in a few minutes. Take the woman too, or she might make trouble later.” She sent him the bar’s coordinates and closed the message before he could start spewing more hot air about how great his leader was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movies tend to handwave all the language barriers that should exist in an intergalactic story, and I don't really have an issue with that, but I'm not going to ignore that stuff in my fics. We can assume Allspeak takes care of it for the Asgardians, and we know characters like the Guardians and Carol have those translator things. I think the only time the movies actually got lazy was in Infinity War, when Tony, Peter, and Stephen were able to talk to Mantis, Drax, and Nebula (and then Tony and Nebula in Endgame), even though I can't think of a way translators would be any use to the person listening. I get that there wasn't room to deal with it in those movies, though. But what I'm going off of is that the only people we ever actually saw Bruce/Hulk talking to in Ragnarok were Valkyrie, Thor, and Loki, so for all we know, he was never able to understand a word anyone else was saying on Sakaar. Which really wouldn't have been a problem for the Hulk anyway.
> 
> Okay, Loki and Valkyrie. Maybe this is going to change in the Loki series, but even though the fandom tends to ship Loki with anyone and everyone, and even though Tom Hiddleston is ridiculously attractive, until the third time I saw Ragnarok, I probably would've said MCU Loki was asexual. Possibly as the result of not living as his actual species and growing up thinking of his own species as monsters. None of his interactions with other characters in any of the movies seem flirty to me (or, if they do, they certainly aren't sincere), and he never seems to be attracted to anyone. I would've been happy to leave things there and write him that way in all my fics, but...well, the way he reacts to Valkyrie in this chapter is basically exactly how I reacted the third time I saw Ragnarok and it got to Loki and Valkyrie's knife fight. Somehow it slipped past me the first two times, but that was hot. I ship it, and some of the stuff from Tessa and Tom's interviews only made the idea more intriguing. So the way I'm interpreting this is that, when it comes to romance, Loki is a lot like Mr. Darcy. He rarely likes anyone. When he does, it comes on very much against his will and he has no idea how to deal with it. Also, whatever might've happened offscreen in the weeks before Thor arrived on Sakaar*, this is different because we're dealing with a much less scarred and jaded Loki. 
> 
> *My theory about Loki's adventures on Sakaar before Thor showed up is that he was kind of a mess because he believed Thor was dead and Hela would easily conquer Asgard. Maybe he had a crush on Valkyrie when he saw her, but he had to focus on winning the Grandmaster's favor and trust. It's pretty clear based on the way they interact that the Grandmaster wanted to get some alone time with Loki, but I'm convinced that Loki was playing hard to get to keep the Grandmaster interested, but never intended to let it go anywhere (hence casually mentioning a plan to assassinate him when he visits Thor). He looks nervous and uncomfortable in all of those scenes, and he sits as far away from the Grandmaster as he can on that couch. 
> 
> I greatly enjoyed writing Topaz. I love how unimpressed she and the Grandmaster are by Ebony Maw. It's so much fun.


End file.
